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Lady's Magazine- 



LIFE 



A EISEN SAVIOUR. 



BY 



ROBERT S. CAKDLISH, D. D. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON. 

1858. 






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Drew Th#oLofl, S«m. 

22 Jet 90 J 



HENRY B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, 
George Street above Eleventh. 



I have endeavored, in these Discourses, to 
illustrate the line of argument pursued by the 
Apostle in the fifteenth chapter of First Co- 
rinthians. It is not, as I apprehend it, an argu- 
ment about the resurrection generally. It has 
respect to one particular view of the resurrection; 
its bearing on the believer's -spiritual and eternal 
life. I have sought to trace tha line of thought 
which gives unity and coherence to the Apostle's 
reasoning. I have by no means, however, aimed 
at anything like a complete commentary or expo- 
sition. I have rarely discussed different interpre- 
tations, and have abstained from minute criticism. 
There is no attempt, on my part, to occupy the 
place already so well filled by such learned and 
acute scholars as Dr. John Brown, and other re- 
cent writers, who have bestowed research and 
study on the examination of this portion of 
Scripture. I have not quoted authorities. But 
I must name Isaac Taylor's " Physical Theory of 



[ vi ] 

Another Life," as having suggested interesting 
lines of thought connected with the future state. 

I crave indulgence for some diffuseness, as well 
as for occasional repetitions, not easily to be 
avoided in a series of compositions for the pulpit, 
prepared often hastily from week to week, and 
all having reference, more or less directly, to one 
theme. I might have recast what I had thus 
prepared, so as to give it the form of a more com- 
pact treatise. But that is always an irksome 
task, — and not always a successful one. I have 
thought it best to publish the Discourses very 
much as they were when I preached them. 

My view of the general plan of the Apostle's 
argument is indicated in the annexed table of 
contents. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Page. 



Discourse I. 1 Corinthians, xv. 1, 2. — The consistency of Paul's 
preaching, and its acceptableness, 

II. 1 Corinthians xv. 3-11. — The substance of Paul's 
preaching, and its evidence, . 



13 



Part First. — What is implied in the Denial 
of the Resurrection. 

III. 1 Corinthians xv. 12-17. — If there is no resurrec- 

tion, Christ is not risen, and we are yet in our 
sins, 

IV. 1 Corinthians xv. 18, 19. — The pious dead are lost, 

and we are miserable, ...... 



47 



60 



V. 1 Corinthians xv. 20-23.— But Christ is risen, and is 

become the first fruits of them that sleep, . . 75 

VI. 1 Corinthians xv. 24-28.— The end : the delivering 

up of the kingdom to the Father, ... 89 

VII. 1 Corinthians xv. 29-32. — Why baptism for the dead, 
and other hazards ? Why not live for the pass- 
ing day ? 103 

Practical Conclusion of Part First. 

VIII. 1 Corinthians xv. 33, 34. — Danger of Antinomian 
license, as the fruit of dallying with "profane 
and vain babblings."— (2 Tim. ii. 16-18.) . . 121 



Ylll CONTENTS. 



Part Second. — The Nature of the Future Body. 

Page. 
Discourse IX. 1 Corinthians xv. 35-38. — How are the dead 

raised? — Not as they die — Analogy of the 

hare grain yielding ripe fruit, .... 146 

X. 1 Corinthians xv. 39-42. — Varieties of hodies in 

nature — Terrestrial and celestial, . . . 159 

XI. 1 Corinthians xv. 42-44. — Bodies changed from 
corruption, dishonor, and weakness, to incor- 
ruption, glory, and power, .... 171 

XII. 1 Corinthians xv. 44. — The natural and the spirit- 
ual body, 1S2 

XIII. 1 Corinthians xv. 45-49.— The two Adams, . . 202 

XIV. 1 Corinthians xv. 50-53. — " Flesh and blood cannot 

inherit the kingdom of God," .... 218 

XV. 1 Corinthians xv. 53, 54.— " Flesh and bones" — 

Kinsmanship, and community of nature, . 241 

XVI. 1 Corinthians xv. 54. — Death swallowed up in vic- 
tory, . • 260 

XVII. 1 Corinthians xv. 55, 56. — The sting of death — Sin 
— The strength of sin — The law — Victory the 
free gift of God in Christ, . . . .278 

XVIII. John xi. 25, 26. — Christ the resurrection and the 

life, 305 

Practical Conclusion of the Second Part, 
and of the whole. 

XIX. 1 Corinthians xv. 58. — Steadfastness in the faith 

of the resurrection, 337 

XX. 1 Corinthians xv. 58. — Abounding in the work of 

the Lord — Its reward — ^Resumption of it, . 358 

Supplementary Discourse. 

XXI. Isaiah xxv. 8. — The Church's progress— Her final 
victory over all the earth — Her missionary 
character, 387 



LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 



DISCOUESE I. 

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto 
you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand ; by which 
also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, 
unless ye have believed in vain. — 1 Corinthians xv. 1, 2. 

rtlHE opening sentence in this chapter, in connec- 
-*- tion with the closing verse of the chapter before 
it, seems to mark the relief the apostle feels in pass- 
ing from the discussion about spiritual gifts, which 
is beginning to be irksome, to a more congenial and 
welcome theme. He dismisses, almost impatiently, 
the former topic. One way or other let there be an 
end of it. Let us have no more trouble about these 
questions as to the conduct of your gifted men and 
women in your assemblies. Only " let all things be 
done decently and in order." And now let us turn 
to what is far more vital. " I now declare to you, 
brethren" — I remind you of " the gospel which I 
preached unto you, which also ye have received, and 
wherein ye stand ; by which also ye are saved, if ye 
keep in memory" — (or rather simply "keep" — for 
that is the apostle's real meaning) — " what I preach- 
2 



14 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

eel unto you, unless ye have believed in vain." (vs. 
1,2.) 

What the substance of that gospel was, appears 
from the summary of its facts or doctrines afterwards 
given. In the meanwhile, in these preliminary verses, 
the apostle describes the treatment which it got at the 
hands of the Corinthians when he first preached it 
to them — the treatment which he is entitled to pre- 
sume that it gets, and will get, at their hands still. 
He puts them in remembrance of what it once was 
to them. He points out what it must still be to 
them, if they are not to stultify or falsify their whole 
Christian profession. And he does so, that he may 
found upon their own past, if not present, esteem of 
the gospel, a protest against their listening to any 
doctrine that would damage or disparage it. He ap- 
peals to their own better judgment regarding it 
against that startling corruption of it which he is 
about to expose — that denial of the resurrection of 
the dead which cuts up by the roots its whole signi- 
ficancy and value. He would bring them back, at 
the very outset of the discussion on which he is en- 
tering, to the first freshness of their early trust in 
Christ, and the sure hold which they had of his great 
salvation. The gospel which I declare to you, of 
which I remind you, which I would have you to 
keep pure, is the gospel which I preached to you, 
which you once received, standing fast in it, and 
hoping to be saved by it ; the gospel which surely 
you retain and grasp firmly still, unless the entire 
fabric of your faith is to be leveled with the dust. 

Several important practical views of evangelical 



ALLUSION TO PAST TIMES. 15 

faith are here suggested ; as, for instance, its simpli- 
city, its stability, its saving power, its perseverance. 
To some of these let us with prayer direct our 
thoughts. 

I. "I declare unto you" — I would recall to your 
remembrance — "the gospel which I preached unto 
you, which also ye have received." I declare it to 
you as the gospel which I preached, and which you 
received. I have nothing new to tell on the subject 
to which that gospel relates — the subject of your 
peace with God, and your walk with God. It is to 
the old gospel that I would bring you always back — 
to the gospel which I used to preach to you in all 
simplicity, and which in all simplicity you were wont 
to receive. 

There is an affecting allusion here to past times. 
There is a touch of tenderness, as the apostle deli- 
cately recalls his own early ministry among the Co- 
rinthians, and their acceptance of it. 

" I marvel that ye are so soon and so easily re- 
moved from him that called you into the grace 
of Christ." I would have you remember what sort 
of reception you once gave to the gospel which I 
preached to you. It is the same gospel that I declare 
to you still. The change, if there be any, is not in 
it but in you. If it is not altogether to you now 
what it was then, may it not be good for you to 
look back and ask yourselves, how I preached it 
then, and how you received it then ? 

There are occasions in Christian experience when 
such a retrospect may be most seasonable and pro- 



16 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

fitable ; when it may be most useful to remind Chris- 
tians of the sort of welcome which they were accus- 
tomed to give to the gospel in days gone by. 

1. Thus, I am subjected, let it be supposed, to the 
temptation of having novelties in doctrine or in prac- 
tice urged on my acceptance. It is proposed to me 
that I should contemplate the matter of which the 
gospel treats in a new light. I am to look from a 
new point of view on the old question of my recon- 
ciliation to God, and the settlement of my peace with 
God. The righting of my state in relation to him, 
and the renewing of my nature in conformity to his 
image, these, my essential and indispensable wants, 
are somehow to be met npon a new plan. Some 
new aspect of the Divine character — some new ideal 
of the Divine government — seems to flash on me, so 
as to fascinate and charm me. I feel as if I had 
made a fresh and great discovery as to what God is 
to me, and what he would have me to be to him. 

Am I then, in such a case, to discard the new sug- 
gestions of my inquiring spirit, and shut my eyes to 
the new light which I think has dawned on me ? 
Surely no. But just as surely I do well, at such a 
crisis, to call to mind the Lord's former dealings with 
my soul, and my own experience under them. I am 
not rashly to set aside as fallacious or fictitious the 
whole of Paul's preaching of the gospel to me, as if 
it were " a song of the olden time," and the whole 
of my believing reception of the gospel which he 
preached, as if it had been a delusion and a dream. 
The doctrine of the resurrection, or any other doc- 
trine touching the life of the soul and the destiny of 



THE OLD GOSPEL. 17 

the race, may be presented to me in a new light. It 
may commend itself, or be commended to me, in the 
form of a sort of improved edition of the original 
message issuing from the cross, the grave, the open- 
ed heavens. And the new edition of it may appear 
to furnish a more satisfactory solution of difficulties, 
and a shorter and more royal road to faith, than the 
old system, encumbered as it is with ideas of guilt 
and wrath ; sin and condemnation ; eternal punish- 
ment; vicarious suffering; justifying righteousness; 
a lost world ; an elect people ; a redemption ; a re- 
newal ; an adoption ; a bodily rising from the dead ; 
a real and local inheritance of glory. There may be, 
there is, risk and danger in our being solicited to 
taste such new wine as may be offered to us to put 
into our old bottles. Surely, before we yield to the 
temptation, we may well be exhorted to consider 
what sort of gospel once satisfied us ; what sort of 
gospel we once received. " No man, having drunk 
old wine, straightway desireth new; for he saith, 
The old is better." 

2. Again, apart from any suggestion of novelties, 
I find my heart becoming cold, my conscience cal- 
lous, my mind listless, in going through the routine 
of my customary religious exercises, and reading or 
listening to the commonplaces of ordinary religious 
instruction. Sacred duties, devotions, discourses, 
studies, all begin to pall upon me; to become 
"weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." Somehow 
the plain gospel, setting forth man's utter ruin and 
helplessness, and God's free and full salvation, fails 
to impress me ; it is felt to be trite and tiresome. I 

2* 



18 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

am conscious of a languid and lethargic sort of 
apathy when I am brought into contact with it, 
which I feel as if I could not shake off. I become 
morbid and gloomy. It seems as if it were all in 
vain for me to try to believe, or have peace, or be at 
liberty, on the terms of that mere free and sovereign 
grace whose offer is so constantly dinned in my ears. 
It " contents me not." And having nothing else to 
look to, I am driven almost to dark and blank despair. 
May it not be good for me, in that extremity, to 
bethink me of what once, at least, appeared to meet 
my case, and satisfy the cravings of my anxious and 
awakened soul ? to be reminded of the gospel which 
Paul once preached to me, and which I once receiv- 
ed ? Was I in a worse frame then for appreciating 
the real evidence, and power, and value of that gos- 
pel than I am now ? Nay, were there not circum- 
stances in my state, and elements in my experience 
then, that are largely wanting now, and that did 
conduce then to a right estimate of Christ, and of 
his suitableness, and his free gift of himself to 
me ? Was it not a time when there was less room 
than there is now for refining, and objecting, and 
starting scruples, and making difficulties ? Was 
there not more of straightforwardness and singleness 
of eye ? There was no daltying or hesitating then. 
There was an urgent necessity for prompt decision. 
And whatever I may think of the opportunities of 
calm reflection which prolonged leisure and compa- 
rative security have given me, are not the instinct of 
my first alarm, when the terror of the Lord flashed 
upon me, — and the fresh fervor of my first faith and 



THE OLD PATHS, THE GOOD WAY. 19 

love, in my eager closing with his offered mercy, as 
trustworthy, at least, as any of my more recent ques- 
tionings and speculations? Let me "ask for the 
old paths, where is the good way." Let me try ' 
again, if "walking therein I may peradventure find 
rest for my soul." 

Surely, it may be good for us, when our confidence 
and affection are beginning to fail, when we are 
tempted also to throw the blame of the failure on the 
gospel as preached to us in the old fashion, and to 
fancy that it might tell on us more in a new dress, — 
to go back to the old time, and recall our early re- 
ception of it in the days of our soul's spiritual birth, 
— our new " life's morning march, when our bosom 
was young." " I have somewhat against thee, be- 
cause thou hast left thy first love. Remember, there- 
fore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do 
the first works." And let us be sure, that with re- 
ference to our believing now, as well as with refer- 
ence to our believing at first, the saying of the Lord 
holds true — " If they hear not Moses and the pro- 
phets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose 
from the dead." 

II. " I declare unto you the gospel . . . wherein 
ye stand ;" or have got a standing. This the apostle 
urges as another recommendation of that old gospel 
which some among the people to whom he is writing 
would now, it seems, amend and improve upon. It 
commanded your assent and consent once; your 
warm embrace and cordial acceptance ; at a time, 
when you too, were in the best possible circum- 



20 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

stances for appreciating its glorious excellency as a 
revelation of the character and will of God, and its 
gracious adaptation to your case, as guilty, lost, mis- 
erable sinners. And it might well do so ; you might 
well be willing to receive it as you did. For in it 
you have now a position which you never otherwise 
could reach; a position of secure, stable, settled 
righteousness and peace ; a strong position ; a sure 
habitation ; — ;< Our feet shall stand within thy gates, 
Jerusalem." 

Yes ; the apostle virtually says to the Corinthians, 
you may be thoroughly assured that none of those 
refinements on the gospel system — none of those 
fresh and original exhibitions of it, whether in the 
new light of a higher philosophy, or on the field of 
a wider and larger philanthropy — which have a cer- 
tain attraction for you in certain modes of mind ; — 
none of them have the element of stability; none of 
them have power to impart the security which the 
gospel itself, rightly apprehended, gives ; in none of 
them can you stand at all so safely, or so surely, or 
so uprightly, as in it. They may seem to have some 
advantages in the way of overcoming initial difficul- 
ties on the heavenly road, or in the way of leading 
that road subsequently along a loftier range of vision 
and attainment. The first and primary act of faith, 
in closing with Christ, may apparently be rendered 
simpler and easier by substituting for the free and 
universal gift of Christ to sinners as their Saviour, 
some vague notion of the Creator's equal fatherly 
favor for all his creatures, even apart from their be- 
ing converted by his Spirit and reconciled to himself 



THE GOSPEL WHEREIN WE STAND. 21 

by the blood of bis Son. And there may be a doc- 
trine or discipline of so-called perfection, connected 
with mystical conceptions of the spiritual life ; or 
there may be an assumption and affectation of a hu- 
manity less straitened than that of ordinary, old 
fashioned godliness ; such as may leave far behind 
the tame and narrow routine of a humble and holy 
walk with God in the midst of an evil world. But, 
after all, where, but in the old gospel of the free 
grace of God in Christ, is a poor tempest-tossed dove 
to find a resting-place for the sole of its foot ? Where, 
but in the ark, is a weary spirit to find safe repose ? 
It is in the gospel that you stand. For it is the gos- 
pel alone that can furnish, what is the indispensable 
condition of your standing securely, the means and 
method of a thorough healing of the breach, a 
thorough settlement of the misunderstanding, which 
sin has caused betw r een you and your God. In the 
gospel alone, in the gospel system of a free and full 
justification by grace, through faith in Christ — in 
Christ as the righteousness of God — in Christ as the 
Lord our righteousness — have we guilty man con- 
fronted face to face with his Judge, and made to see 
how in righteousness his guilt is canceled, and him- 
self restored to the place and privilege of a child. 
There alone have we, in the cross of Christ, the 
Ruler and the criminal, the Father and the prodigal, 
the Holy One and the sinner, righteously reconciled. 
This is our standing in the gospel. " Being justified 
by faith we have peace with God, through our Lord 
Jesus Christ : by whom also we have access by faith 
into this grace wherein we stand," (Rom. v. 1, 2.) 



22 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

On any other footing, all is precarious and insecure. 
But here, — " in the gospel which I preached to you, 
which also ye received, — ye stand." 

III. By that gospel also " ye are saved." For this 
gospel is indeed " the power of God unto salvation 
to every one that believes." And it is so, because 
" therein is the righteousness of God revealed from 
faith to faith ; as it is written, the just shall live by 
faith." (Rom. i. 16, 17.) Christ crucified may be to 
some a stumbling block, for he was crucified through 
weakness. But the weakness of God is stronger 
than man ; and to them that are called, Christ cru- 
cified is the power of God. All the elements of sal- 
vation are provided for us and secured to us in this 
gospel : free forgiveness ; complete acceptance in the 
sight of God ; a sure standing in his favor ; present 
peace ; renewal also of nature ; a new heart ; a right 
spirit; a new principle of holy loyalty implanted in 
us, namely, love to him who first loved us ; the gift, 
moreover, of the Holy Ghost; his indwelling in us, to 
shed abroad in our hearts the love of God to us ; to 
quicken our love to God; to cry in us, Abba, Father; 
to witness with our spirits that we are the children of 
God ; and if children then heirs, heirs of God and 
joint heirs with Christ ; to be thus in us the earnest 
of our inheritance, giving us more and more, in our 
growing sense of God's fatherly love to us, and our 
growing exercise of filial love to God, — in our ad- 
vancing likeness to him, and our increasing capacity 
for knowing, trusting, and delighting in him, — an 
ever brightening foresight, an ever deepening fore- 



THE FULL SALVATION OF THE GOSPEL. 23 

taste, of the eternal blessedness of heaven. Such 
salvation is there in " the gospel which I preached 
unto you, which also ye have received and wherein 
ye stand." Surely, then, it is not a gospel to he light- 
ly abandoned, or superseded, or changed. 

IV. So the apostle, in substance, pleads, when he 
puts it, as it were, to the Corinthians to say if they 
mean to " keep in memory," or rather simply to 
keep, to retain and hold fast, " what he preached 
unto them?" Is it not worth the keeping? Is it 
not still, as at the first, " a faithful saying, and wor- 
thy of all acceptation ?" If it is a gospel which you 
once received ; if it is a gospel which is of such 
power to " strengthen, stablish, settle you," to give 
you a firm footing and sure standing in the favor and 
in the family of Heaven ; and if it is a gospel which 
conveys and secures to you, in present possession 
and in future prospect, such a fullness of saving ben- 
efits ; is it to be supposed possible that you will hesi- 
tate about keeping it ? It cannot, of course, minis- 
ter to you either stability or salvation, unless you 
keep it ; grasping it tenaciously and refusing to let 
it go. It is satisfying and saving only if you keep it. 

If you keep it ! Can that be matter of doubt ? 
If so, it comes to this, that " ye have believed in 
vain." You make void and vain all the Lord's 
gracious dealings with you, and all your experience 
hitherto of his love and mercy. All that you have 
ever heard and seen of Christ is of none effect. You 
in effect nullify your whole past Christianity. For 
such a result surely you are not prepared ; an alter- 



24 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

native like that you cannot face. And yet that is 
the inevitable consequence of your giving up and 
parting with the gospel which "I have preached 
unto you." You are at sea again; unsettled and 
unquiet. Questions that concern your best interests 
for time and for eternity — questions, which once 
seemed to be well adjusted — are again involved in 
all their old perplexing uncertainty. You have to 
begin the search for saving light and solid peace 
anew. And the probability is that, if you yield to 
the temptation, you may become like those who are 
" ever learning, and never able to come to the know- 
ledge of the truth." Keep therefore what you have 
received. Hold fast that which is good. When at 
any time you are in danger of being seduced from 
your steadfastness, let the still small voice of Christ 
sound in your ear, "Will ye also go away?" And 
let your reply be prompt, " Lord, to whom shall we 
go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." 



DISCOURSE II. 

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that 
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was 
buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures : 
And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve : After that he was 
seen of above five hundred brethren at once ; of whom the greater part 
remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was 
seen of James ; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of 
me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apos- 
tles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the 
church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am : and his 
grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain ; but I labored more 
abundantly than they all : yet not I, but the grace of God which was 
with me. Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye 
believed. — 1 Corinthians xv. 3 — 11. 



ri^HESE verses lead us to notice, first, what gospel 
-*- Paul preached (vs. 3, 4 ;) secondly, in what char- 
acter he preached it, — as an apostle, as one of those 
who had seen the risen Lord (vs. 5, 10 ;) and, thirdly, 
how entirely unanimous the apostles, himself and the 
others, were in what they preached, and what they 
asked the people to believe (v. 11.) I. The substance ; 
II. The warrant and authority; III. The harmony 
and consent of the early apostolic preaching, or con- 
fession, or testimony — call it which you will — these 
are the three topics here suggested for consideration. 

I. The gospel which Paul preached was very sim- 
ple : " For I delivered unto you first of all that which 
3 



ZO LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

I also received, how that Christ died for our sins ac- 
cording to the Scriptures ; and that he was buried, 
and that he rose again the third day according to the 
Scriptures." 1. The articles of the creed on which 
he insisted were few and plain — " Christ died ; he 
was buried; he rose again." These three facts form- 
ed the staple of his preaching ; they furnished to him 
his heads of discourse ; they made up together his 
confession of faith. These were the truths which he 
was accustomed to deliver at Corinth. 2. He deliv- 
ered them " first of all." They were among the first 
things of which he spoke. He put them always in 
the van and forefront of all his teaching. 3. He de- 
livered them as "that which he also received." 
They constituted his message and his mission : both 
of which came to him directly from the Lord. 

1. The articles of this apostolic creed ; the heads 
of our apostle's customary discourse at Corinth ; are 
three, or, rather two, propositions. They are three, 
if we take them in the bare announcement of them, 
as matters of fact — Christ died ; he was buried ; he 
rose again. They are two, if we take them in con- 
nection with that appeal to the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures which occurs first in the third verse, and then 
again, secondly, in the fourth. And it is that appeal 
which gives them their real meaning and value, as 
embodying and unfolding the essential principles of 
the divine government applicable to the salvation of 
man. 

The first proposition, then, is " that Christ died 
for our sins according to the Scriptures." 

It is not the mere fact of our Lord's death that is 



CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS. 27 

insisted on ; but, first, the meaning of that fact — 
"He died for our sins;" and, secondly, the place 
which it holds in the economy of God, as revealed 
from the beginning of the world — " He died for our 
sins, according to the Scriptures." In either view, 
the historical fact becomes a religious dogma, or 
doctrine. 

Thus, in the first place, " Christ died for our sins." 
To say that Christ died, is to state a bare historical 
fact ; to say that Christ died for our sins, is to teach 
a religious doctrine. It was not, therefore, an ordi- 
nary death that he died. It was not the common 
case of a man giving up the ghost, breathing his last, 
and, as the phrase is, paying the debt of nature. 
His death and our sins are intimately connected : the 
guilt of our sins being the cause of his death ; the 
removal of that guilt being the fruit and effect of it. 
To this death of Christ, thus viewed, I was always, 
says the apostle, directing your eye : " I determined 
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, 
and him crucified." I held him forth before you, 
lifted up upon the cross, dying for our sins, yours 
and mine. 

Who is he who is seen dying there ? Jesus Christ 
the righteous, the Lord from heaven, the Son of the 
Highest, himself the mighty God, who has become 
man for this very end, that he may be capable of 
dying. And who are they who inflict on this high 
and holy One the doom of this death ? TsTot Herod 
and Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of 
Israel; but our sins, O ye Corinthians, yours and 
mine. But if our sins slew him, is it not the worse 






28 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

for us ? "No ; lie prays for his murderers that they 
may be forgiven. He bears our sins, that he may 
relieve us of their burden. Looking to him, we are 
lightened. He died for our sins, that we might not 
die in our sins. He consented to their slaying him, 
that they might not slay us. 

Christ died for our sins ; by reason of them ; on 
account of them. His death therefore was penal. It 
was the death which is the wages of sin. It was the 
death which we for our sins deserved to die. It was 
death by the sentence of law ; of the holy, unchange- 
able, righteous law of God. To die for our sins is to 
be subjected to their penalty, their punishment. It 
is to be subjected to the curse, that is, the condem- 
nation of the law. It is to bear the wrath of the 
lawgiver and judge. It is to suffer what Christ suf- 
fered when he uttered that exceeding bitter cry, 
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me !" 

Shall we still choose to die for our sins ; to endure, 
and that for ever, what Christ endured when he died 
for our sins ? Nay, rather let his death save us from 
thus dying. He died for our sins ; for the canceling 
of their guilt, for the annulling of their criminality. 
His death, being penal, is expiating and atoning It 
is a real sacrifice of substitution. He takes the place 
of sinners. He dies for our sins instead of us. His 
dying for our sins is instead of our dying for them 
ourselves. No wonder, therefore, that he saj-s so 
emphatically, " Whosoever believeth in me shall 
never die." 

And all this, the apostle observes, secondly, is " ac- 
cording to the Scriptures." Paul was always careful 



"according to the scriptures." 29 

to identify his own statement concerning Christ, 
that he died for onr sins, with all former revelations 
from the beginning. And he did so, not merely 
that he might confirm what he said himself by the 
authority of holy men of old who " spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost ;" nor that his teach- 
ing might add weight to theirs, or theirs to his ; nor 
even that their thorough agreement might prove the 
truth of both. In appealing to these old Scriptures 
as concurring in what he newly and freshly preach- 
ed, that " Christ died for our sins," he has a higher 
purpose to serve. He means to indicate the place 
which this great truth holds in that moral govern- 
ment of God, which it is the object alike of the Scrip- 
tures of the Old Testament, and of the apostolic 
preaching in the New, to illustrate and unfold. 

That " Christ died for our sins," is not a fact of 
local and temporary significance, like other great 
facts in the world's history which, however linked 
on with what goes before and comes after, may yet 
be, each in itself, isolated, separately estimated, dis- 
posed of, and set aside. Considered simply as a his- 
torical event, the death of Christ has a scene and a 
date. It took place in Palestine some eighteen cen- 
turies and a half ago. It was that event which put 
an end to Judaism and originated Christianity. 
Christ died ; and in consequence of that fact, an old 
religion passed away and a new religion began its 
course. But the doctrine — " Christ died for our 
sins " — lifts the fact of Christ's death out of the 
category of a mere historical event, having a local 
scene and a date in past time. It becomes now the 

3* 



30 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUK. 

embodiment, or the enacting, of a principle in the 
divine administration ; — a principle common to all 
times and places — common therefore to all the rev- 
elations of God to man. It was " according to the 
Scriptures" that Christ should die for our sins, be- 
cause it was according to the fixed, unalterable rule 
of that moral government of God to which the Scrip- 
tures throughout are intended to bear testimony. 

That he who would save sinners must save them 
by dying for their sins, is a necessary law or princi- 
ple of the divine administration. And, therefore, 
from the first it was announced, and continued always 
to be announced, as a discovery of divine revelation, 
that he who was to save sinners, was to save them by 
dying for their sins. 

So it was announced in that earliest prophecy of 
mercy, when God said to the serpent, " I will put 
enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head and 
thou shalt bruise his heel." From the beginning, 
also, the rite of animal sacrifice, the slaying of a 
lamb, a goat, or a bullock, with confession of guilt 
over its head, proclaimed the same universal, invari- 
able, necessary, and indispensable law, that " with- 
out shedding of blood there is no remission." Sin- 
ners can be saved only by one dying for their sins. 
The whole Levitical institute, with its temple-wor- 
ship, its vicarious priesthood, its ceremonial ordi- 
nances, its continual offering of daily, weekly, month- 
ly, and annual sacrifices of slaughtered victims on be- 
half of the unclean — kept up the instinctive sense of 
that righteous rule of the Divine government which 
requires penal death for sin, and the hope also that 



THE LAW OF SACRIFICE. 31 

ere long the rule would have its accomplishment in 
a worthy ransom being found thus to die. 

And with increasing clearness, as time rolled on, 
inspired prophets threw light on this hope, as they 
told of him who was " to grow up before the Lord, 
as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground." 
(Isaiah liii. 2 — 6,) "He hath no form, nor comeliness ; 
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that 
we should desire him. He is despised and rejected 
of men ; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with 
grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; 
he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely 
he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ; 
yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and 
afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgres- 
sions, he was bruised for our iniquities : the chastise- 
ment of our peace was upon him ; and with his 
stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone 
astray; we have turned every one to his own way; 
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." 
Thus Christ " died for our sins according to the Scrip- 
tures." 

And thus always we are to consider his death; not 
so much with reference to its mere occurrence, as an 
event in history, but rather in its bearing on the es- 
sential rule or principle in the holy administration 
of God, which, as we trace it through all the Scrip- 
tures, the death of Christ is seen to assert and vindi- 
cate ; so that w T e may be impressed with right and 
suitable views of the exceeding evil and demerit of 
sin; the inevitable certainty of judgment; the im- 
possibility of escape otherwise than through the shed- 



32 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

ding of blood ; the inflexible rectitude of that moral 
government by law, which cannot even in mercy be 
relaxed, whose claims must be met if anarchy is not 
to reign ; the infinite love, above all, of the Father, 
who, when no other adequate substitute can be 
found, brings in the first begotten, the beloved Son, 
with the proclamation — " Deliver from going down 
to the pit, for I have found a ransom " — as well as 
the infinite love also of the Son who, knowing the 
inexorable condition, that he can save sinners only 
by dying for their sins, is heard saying, " Lo ! I 
come ; I delight to do thy will, God." 

The second proposition embraced in the apostle's 
preaching is the supplement or counterpart of the 
first. It is this — f He was buried, and he rose again 
according to the Scriptures." These two statements 
might be separated ; and if, like the former, " Christ 
died for our sins," they were so put as to bring out 
their doctrinal value, or, in other words, their bear- 
ing on the plan of the divine government in the sal- 
vation of sinners, it might be of importance to con- 
sider them separately. But they are not so put here. 
Elsewhere they are so put, as when it is said of Christ 
(Rom. iv. 25,) that he was " delivered for our of- 
fences, and was raised again for our justification;" 
and when it is said of believers (Col. -ii. 20, and iii. 
1,) that they are first "buried with him," and then 
"risen with him." In this very chapter, as the ar- 
gument goes on, the full significancy of the fact of 
the resurrection, as affecting both our present peace, 
and our hope for the future, is illustrated at length. 
But, in the brief summary of his preaching now be- 



CHRIST UNDER THE POWER OF DEATH FOR A TIME. 33 

fore us, Paul merely mentions the burial of Christ, 
and his resurrection, as matters of fact, which, view- 
ed in connection with his death, establish the com- 
pleteness of the transaction which that event con- 
summated and sealed. It is to prove the sufficiency 
and efficacy of Christ's death, as an atonement for 
sin, that his burial and resurrection are here brought 
in. 

" Christ died for our sins." But he did not con- 
tinue dead. He was not long under the power of 
death. "He was buried," indeed, and for a time it 
seemed as if he was to have no power to save ; as if 
the cross were fatal to him — and, therefore, fatal to 
those for whose sins he died — as if they had nothing 
for it but to re-echo the sad complaint of the mourn- 
ing disciples, " We trusted that it had been he which 
should have redeemed Israel." But he rose again. 
Whatever his endurance of death implied, including 
the body's occupancy of the dark and noisome grave, 
as well as the soul's separate sojourn in the unknown 
region where disembodied spirits dwell, was tempo- 
rary. It was of brief duration. It came to a speedy 
end. 

It must be so, for so it had been foretold. " He 
rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." 
It was announced that he was to rise again. And if 
we may not interpret that text (Hosea vi. 1,) " Come, 
let us return unto the Lord; he hath smitten, and he 
will bind us up ; after two days will he revive us ; in 
the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live 
in his sight;" — if, I say, we may not interpret that 
text as fixing the third day for his resurrection — 



34 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

although some eminent divines have so interpreted 
it — yet we have, at all events, the assurance that his 
resurrection was to follow his death so closely as to 
preclude the possibility of what Martha feared might 
have happened to her brother's corpse within four 
days of his decease. For we have the Psalmist, in 
Christ's person, "rejoicing, his flesh also resting in 
hope," (Psalm xvi. 10,) and giving this as the reason 
of his joyful and patient hope, " Thou wilt not leave 
my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy 
One to see corruption." 

Thus it was "according to the Scriptures" that 
Christ rose again the third day. And it was accord- 
ing to the Scriptures, because his resurrection after 
burial, like his death, in order to burial, was no mere 
ordinary event in providence, but one that touches 
an essential principle of the divine administration. 

For if it is true, in virtue of a fixed rule or law in 
the holy, moral government of God, that whoever 
would save sinners must save them by dying for 
their sins, it is no less true, that if he is to save 
them, his dying for their sins must be followed up 
immediately by his rising again. He must be one 
of whom it can be said, "That it is not possible that 
he should be holden of death." He must be one 
who can say of himself, "I am he that liveth and 
was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore ; and 
have the keys of hell and of death;" of the invisible 
world, and of the entrance thereto. He is to die for 
our sins. They are to slay him. He is to suffer 
death on account of them, as a bleeding victim on 
the altar of atonement. And is that all ? Then a 



CHRIST NOT "HOLDEN OF DEATH." 35 

succession of such sufferers must be found, in quick 
relay, ransom after ransom, lamb after lamb, each, 
dying for our sins, and continuing dead until now. 
But that cannot be all. The true Saviour must be 
one who, dying for our sins, receives and takes again 
the life which he lays down. He must be one who 
can meet our doom, the doom which, as sinners, we 
have deserved, and who, at the same time, cannot 
remain under it. A divine person, the everlasting 
Son of the Father, his equal, his fellow; taking 
our nature ; taking our place ; becoming capable of 
enduring the penalty of our sins ; yet not capable of 
continuing to endure it; such a Saviour alone can 
meet our case, and, consistently with the eternal 
principle of righteousness in the government of 
God, effect our deliverance and salvation. 

Therefore, from the beginning, Christ is promised 
in the Scriptures as the seed of the woman, whose 
heel the serpent is to bruise, but who is himself to 
bruise the serpent's head. He is to bid defiance to 
death and to the grave; — (Hosea xiii. 14,) "0 death, 
I will be thy plagues ; grave, I will be thy destruc- 
tion." He is not to die for our sins, as a merely 
mortal substitute or victim might be put to death 
for them. He is so thoroughly and conclusively to 
die for our sins, that once for all he is to " finish 
transgression and make an end of sin, and bring in 
an everlasting righteousness." "As the righteous 
servant of the Father," he is "by the knowledge of 
himself to justify many, for he is to bear their iniqui- 
ties." And he is to have done with bearing them. 
When "his soul shall have made an offering for sin," 



36 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

he is "to see his seed, he is to prolong his days, and 
the pleasure of the Lord is to prosper in his hand." 

According to such Scriptures as these, announcing 
the only Redeemer possible under the fixed rule, or 
law, or principle, of the righteous government of 
God, Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose 
again the third day. And now it is our unspeak- 
able privilege and joy to know that our Redeemer, 
though he was dead, he liveth; and that "he is able 
to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by 
him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
them." 

These, then, are the facts on which Paul used to 
insist, in preaching the gospel to the Corinthians: 
the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And 
such is the doctrinal value, and the spiritual bearing 
of these facts, viewed in connection with the teach- 
ing of the Scriptures from the beginning, and with 
that plan or method of the divine government, which 
it is the business of the Scriptures to unfold. 

2. But the apostle not only reminds the Corin- 
thians of the topics he was accustomed to handle ; — 
he is anxious also to remind them of the place which 
they occupied in all his teaching among them; — 
" These things I delivered unto you first of all;" or, 
more exactly, among the first things. The apostle 
evidently attaches importance to this circumstance, 
and what he means would seem to be this. At the 
very beginning of my preaching the gospel to you, I 
opened up to you these things. And all throughout, 
in all my ministry, however I might exhort you to 
" leave the first principles of the doctrine of Christ 



FIRST OF ALL — AMONG THE FIRST THINGS. 37 

and go on. to perfection," I never ceased to insist 
on these first and fundamental facts or doctrines of 
Christianity — "that Christ died for our sins accord- 
ing to the Scriptures ; and that he was buried, and 
that he rose again the third day according to the 
Scriptures." 

They were the first things of which I spoke to 
you ; these pregnant and significant facts ; giving an 
insight, such as nothing else can give, into the scope 
and meaning of the Old Testament Scriptures, and 
the fixed essential principles of the government of 
Grod, of which these Scriptures are the witness, and 
exponent, and revelation. I did not seek to intro- 
duce you gradually to the consideration of such 
topics, and to prepare the way by previous appeals of 
a nature fitted to be more welcome to your under- 
standings, your tastes, your feelings, and your affec- 
tions. I plunged at once into the very heart of an 
obnoxious theme. I held up, in spite of its offence, 
the cross. I did not hesitate to commend to you, as 
your Saviour, one who died as a guilty slave. I did 
not hesitate to tell you the story of his resurrection. 
I knew that these truths would be most unpalatable 
to you : that the idea of one who died on the cross 
being your Saviour, would hurt your pride ; that the 
idea of a resurrection from the grave, would shock 
your reason. But I did not, on that account, keep 
back — no, not for a moment — these truths of God. 
I did not try to win you by putting forward, as I 
might have done, speculations or theories, that might 
have better pleased your fancy. I wasted no time in 
trying to disarm prejudice, and conciliate favor. I 
4 



38 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

spoke right on. I went straight up to the fortress. 
I dispensed with all preliminaries, and summoned it 
at once to the surrender, in the name of a crucified 
and risen Saviour. You are my witnesses. My very 
first words to you, without preface or preamble of 
any sort, were these strange words for Grecian ears 
polite, that an obscure native of Galilee, bred in the 
house of a common carpenter, condemned as a male- 
factor to a servile death, was by that very death the 
Saviour of men from their sins, and that after being 
unquestionably dead, and, as dead, consigned to the 
tomb, he returned again to life within three short 
days. You know how I spoke to you, from the very 
beginning, of these events, and referred you, for 
proof and explanation of them, to the old records of 
a nation you were accustomed to despise. " I deliv- 
ered unto you, first of all, how that ChrisJ; died for 
our sins according to the Scriptures ; and that he was 
buried, and that he rose again the third day accord- 
ing to the Scriptures.'* 

Nor is this all. You are my witnesses also ; you 
know how, all throughout my ministry among you, 
however much I might be bent on carrying you on 
to the highest attainments in the knowledge of 
Christ, and in the life of God, I still always kept 
these truths prominently in the foreground. I did 
not, indeed, wish you to be for ever working at the 
foundation ; I exhorted you to go on from what was 
merely rudimental and elementary in the Christian 
experience, to what might interest and engage the 
loftiest movements and aspirations of your souls. 
But you must remember that I never ceased from 



THE APOSTLE'S MISSION. 89 

reminding you of these first principles of the gospel, 
which from the beginning I made the staple of my 
teaching among you. I never ceased from setting 
before you, as first and foremost in all my appeals to 
you, Christ; Christ crucified; Christ raised from the 
dead. I delivered unto you always, "first of all, 
how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
Scriptures ; and that he was buried, and that he rose 
again the third day according to the Scriptures." 

3. And how, the apostle virtually asks, referring 
to the " necessity laid upon him" to preach this gos- 
pel — how could I do otherwise ? They were the very 
things — these things which I delivered first of all — 
that made up the essence, the sum and substance, of 
my message. It was my mission to deliver them. 
And I had no mission to deliver anything else. " I 
delivered unto you first of all that which I also re- 
ceived." I did not deliver it as a discovery of my 
own. I did not deliver it as a lesson I had learned 
from any master on earth. I delivered it as what I 
had received, not of man, or of man's teaching, but 
by the revelation of Jesus Christ. ~No wonder, there- 
fore, that I delivered it first of all ; that I made it 
from the first my first theme ; and made it my first 
theme always to the last. It was what I had receiv- 
ed. The Lord Jesus gave it me to deliver ; it was 
he who gave it ; and it was all he gave. I spoke as 
his commissioner, his deputy, his ambassador, when 
I was ever telling you how he died for our sins ac- 
cording to the Scriptures, and how he was buried, 
and how he rose again according to the Scriptures. 
I stood before you " as though God did beseech you 



40 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

by me," when I "prayed you, in Christ's stead, to 
be reconciled to God." And I always urged "as the 
great argument and reason for your being reconciled, 
that first truth of the everlasting gospel ; its first and 
last ; its Alpha and Omega ; " God hath made him 
to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be 
made the righteousness of God in him." 

II. Having described the gospel which he was ac- 
customed to preach at Corinth, Paul indicates the 
character in which he preached it. He preached it 
as an apostle, as one of those who had seen the risen 
Lord. For it was their having actually seen the 
Lord after his resurrection that qualified the apostles 
for being eye-witnesses of that event ; and therefore 
qualified them also for declaring that doctrine of the 
atonement which, as we have seen, depends on the 
truth of it. Hence, Paul reminds the Corinthians 
how, in delivering to them that which he received, 
concerning the death, the burial, and the resurrec- 
tion of Christ, it was his practice to appeal to the 
testimony of the original apostles (vs. 5 — 7.) It was 
his practice also to associate himself with them, as- 
competent to bear the same testimony that they bore 
(v. 8.) He was consequently authorized to preach 
the same gospel that they preached, and to preach it 
in the same character in which they preached it — 
that of an eye-witness of the resurrection of Christ, 
(vs. 9, 10.) 

For the original warrant and authority of all apos- 
tolic preaching is to be found in the fact of which 
the apostles were eye-witnesses, that the Lord was 



CHRIST "SEEN OF THE TWELVE." 41 

seen after his resurrection. It was part of my preach- 
ing, therefore, so Paul reminds the Corinthians, that 
Christ, after he was buried and rose again, was seen 
alive by Cephas, and by the college of twelve — still 
called the twelve, though at the time, alas ! shorn of 
its perfect number by the sin and doom of Judas. 
This was the confirmation of what I delivered to you 
concerning Christ, that he died for our sins ; " and 
that he was buried, and that he rose again the third 
day according to the Scriptures." I was able to add, 
that there were those who had actually seen him, 
namely, Peter, and his brethren in the apostleship. 
And now I remind you of this warrant of apostolic 
preaching again. It is not that the evidence of the 
fact of Christ's resurrection depends exclusively on 
the testimony of the apostles. Once at least, he was 
seen by more than iive hundred brethren, of whom, 
though some have died, the greater part are yet sur- 
viving, and may be appealed to in corroboration of 
what the apostles testify. That, however, was not 
the Lord's usual way of appearing during the forty 
days he was on earth before his final ascension. He 
did not go in and out before the multitude, and 
among his disciples, as was his practice in the days 
of his public ministry. God showed him openly, 
" not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen be- 
fore of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with 
him after he rose from the dead," (Acts x. 41.) It 
was the apostles that were to be witnesses of his res- 
urrection ; and it was as witnesses of his resurrec- 
tion that they were to preach the gospel. Hence, it 

was a necessary qualification for the office, that they 

4* 



42 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

who were to hold it must he men who could say, We 
have actually seen the risen Lord. Paul accordingly 
asserts and claims for himself here, as elsewhere, 
(chap. ix. 1,) this very qualification, and on the ground 
of it advocates his right to be an apostle equally with 
Peter, James and the rest ; — " And last of all he was 
seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." 
With fear and trembling he takes that place, keenly 
feeling his unworthiness, cast down into the depths 
of humiliation at the thought of that sin which was 
ever before him — though " he did it ignorantly, in 
unbelief" — the sin of his opposition to Christ and 
his cause ; — "For I am the least of the apostles, that 
am not meet to be called an apostle, because I per- 
secuted the church of God." But with confidence 
he claims his place. For he would not dishonor or 
disown the grace of God to which he owed it — a 
grace so sovereign, and rich, and free, as to choose 
a persecutor for an apostle — and so abundant also, as 
to crown that persecutor's apostolic labors with fruit 
beyond what any of his fellow-laborers could count ; 
— " But by the grace of God I am what I am : and 
his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in 
vain ; but I labored more abundantly than they all : 
yet not I, but the grace of God which was with 
me." 

Grace, he cries ; it is all of grace ! It is by grace 
that I am saved myself, " counting it a faithful say- 
ing, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ 
came into the world to save sinners, of whom I 
am chief." It is by grace that I am called to be an 
apostle; of equal standing with all the apostles, 



PAUL A DEBTOR TO GRACE. 43 

though born, as to my apostleship, like a posthu- 
mous child ; permitted to see the risen Lord as well 
as they ; fitted, as they were fitted, for bearing wit- 
ness to the resurrection. It is by grace that I am 
enabled even to surpass them all in labor, and allow- 
ed to see that I labor not in vain. By the grace of 
God I am what I am. It is not I who labor, but the 
grace of God which is with me. And if these my 
labors, so abundant and so successful, are the seal 
and confirmation of my calling as an apostle ; if in 
that view I seem to boast of them, though in them 
all I feel myself to be debtor to grace alone ; it is 
not that I may exalt myself above Cephas, or James, 
or the others who saw the Lord, but only that I may 
make good my title to be one of them, to be part- 
ners with them in the preaching of the common gos- 
pel, and helpers with them in establishing the com- 
mon faith. 

III. For in what we testify and in what we teach, 
we are all at one. This is the last consideration 
which Paul urges in behalf of the old doctrine, 
which some were for improving upon by their in- 
novations. It has, he argues, this recommendation, 
that in declaring it, and in bearing witness to the 
great fact on which it rests, the apostles of the Lord 
are united and unanimous. " Therefore, whether it 
were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed." 

Thus, the apostle, in closing his appeal to the 
Corinthians, asserts the harmony and consent of the 
apostolic teaching ; and at the same time again re- 
minds them of the glad acceptance which it once 



44 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

met with at their hands. You remember what I 
used to deliver to you as my message, which I had 
received from above. You remember how I spoke 
to you of the death, and burial, and resurrection of 
Christ. You remember how I referred you to the 
testimony of Peter, and the other apostles who had 
seen the Lord alive after his passion. I refer you to 
the same testimony still ; corroborated, if you will, 
by a more numerous company, to whom, on one 
occasion, the Lord appeared. But I speak to you of 
what the apostles, as eye-witnesses of the resurrec- 
tion, have to deliver to you concerning Christ. I 
am myself one of them, not less competent as an 
eye-witness, not less honored as a laborer, than any 
of them. Nay, I have to acknowledge more grace 
than they all ; for who among them was so vile as I 
was when I persecuted the church ; and who among 
them has been exposed as I have been, to toil, and 
blessed, as I have been, in seeing the fruit of my 
toil ? But be that as it may, in this we are all at 
one. "We all speak the same thing. We have all 
the same message to deliver, the same gospel to 
preach. And it is a gospel which, once at least, 
seemed to meet your case, and win your approba- 
tion, "So we preach, and so ye believed." 

Shall I not say, so ye believe still ? Alas ! if I am 
obliged, if you oblige me, to speak in the past tense 
of your believing acceptance of what we, all of us, 
they and I, not only used to preach once, but con- 
tinue to preach now! Is it then really a past 
event? " So ye believed." We have not changed 
our preaching. Can it be that you have changed 



" SO YE BELIEVED." 45 

your belief? We, whether it be Cephas, or James, 
or the other apostles, or myself, not less an apostle 
than any of them — we continue to be all agreed in 
what we have to tell of Christ, and of the way of 
salvation in Christ. "What we preached at the be- 
ginning, we all with one accord constantly preach 
still. As we preached then, so we preach now. 
And so also you once at least believed. Must I stop 
short there? May I not venture to add, — so you 
believe still? 

It is, in one view of it, a keen and somewhat caus- 
tic stroke of humor — a sort of covert yet kindly irony ; 
— ".So we preach, and so ye believed." That old 
gospel of ours was good enough for you as well as 
for us once. It is good enough for us still. But you, 
it seems, have outgrown it. You must have some- 
thing less offensive to philosophic reason and fine 
taste, or something more recondite, transcendental, 
spiritual, and sublime. Be it so. By all means 
perfect the Christian system, and polish it to your 
heart's content. Meanwhile we, for our part, old 
fashioned as we are, will be content to believe as 
you used to believe. We will persevere in preach- 
ing the gospel which formerly you received. 

But in another view it is a deeply affecting appeal. 
It is fitted to bring before your eyes, ye Corin- 
thians, the venerable company of devoted men who 
first proclaimed to you and to all the churches the 
unsearchable riches of Christ. It is fitted to set you 
upon asking what, in comparison with them, are 
those broachers of novelties, to whose subtle teach- 
ing you have been tempted to listen ? What are all 






46 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

their various and conflicting speculations, springing 
out of abstract theories about mind and matter, or 
built upon one-sided and partial views of human 
nature and human life, when compared with the 
simplicity that is in Christ, as the apostolic fathers of 
Christianity are wont to set him forth, dying for our 
sins, and rising again for our justification? 

~No ! Paul shall not have occasion to say, " So we 
preach, and so ye believe." It shall be not — -so ye 
believed, but so ye believe. "What you preach, ye 
holy servants of the Lord, we will hold fast, and not 
let go. 



DISCOURSE III. 

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some amoiig 
you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resur- 
rection of the dead, then is Christ not risen : and if Christ be not risen, 
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are 
found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he 
raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 
For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not 
raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins. — 1 Corinthians xv. 
12-17. 

rpHE fact of the resurrection of Christ and the 
-*- belief of a general resurrection are intimately 
and inseparably connected. So the Apostle Paul 
here as well as elsewhere teaches. He asserts or 
assumes that connection ; and, indeed, the whole of 
his reasoning in this chapter proceeds upon it. The 
resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection 
are so related to one another, that they stand or fall 
together. If Christ is risen, then the dead rise; if 
the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised. 

It is in this last form that the apostle presents the 
case* at the beginning of his argument. He after- 
wards expatiates largely on the other view, and in the 
highest strain of rapturous devotion, brings vividly 
before the eye of the believer, the bearing of his 
Master's resurrection on the glorious hope which he 
he has of his own. But, in the first instance, he 
dwells upon the reverse, or converse, side of the 



48 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

alternative; — "if there be no resurrection, then is 
Christ not raised." 

He seems to express surprise that any who had 
been made acquainted with the fact of Christ's 
resurrection, and with the evidence of that fact, 
should have embraced a doctrine which denies that 
there is or can be such a thing as a literal resurrec- 
tion of the body; — "Now, if Christ be preached that 
he rose from the dead, how say some among you, 
that there is no resurrection of the dead?" And, 
still more, he expresses his surprise that they should 
do so, apparently, without perceiving that they must 
in consistency be driven to deny the resurrection of 
Christ; — "But if there be no resurrection of the 
dead, then is Christ not risen." This, he says, is not 
only a fair and legitimate inference from that theory 
or opinion of yours, but a necessary part of it. 

You think that the only resurrection of which 
men are susceptible is a spiritual resurrection — a 
resurrection which in spiritual men is past already, 
(2 Tim. ii. 18.) That anything whatever of the 
dead body, which you consign to the rottenness 
of the tomb, is hereafter to live again; that in its 
dust, mingled and lost, as it might seem, undis- 
tinguishably in the kindred dust of earth, the germ 
or seed is to be bound of a corporeal frame identi- 
cally the same with the " mortal coil shuffled off" at 
death, only beauteous and glorious beyond all com- 
parison; such a faith as that is in your judgment not 
only a fond imagination, but offensive, as savoring 
of a gross materialism. Your idea of a future 
life is of a more purely spiritual character. The 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST DENIED. 49 

notion of taking up again, in any sense or with any 
change, the very flesh which you lay aside when 
you quit this earthly scene, is to you intolerable. 
You say that there is, that there can be, no such 
resurrection of the dead. 

But have you considered, the apostle asks, how 
impossible it is, according to your views, to main- 
tain the truth of the resurrection of Christ? And 
have you considered what the effect must be on your 
Christian life and experience if his resurrection, as 
a matter of fact, is denied? It is not merely that a 
historical testimony is set aside. The whole gospel 
which we preach, and which you once at least be- 
lieved, is made void; — "If Christ be not risen, then 
is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." 
You pay us a poor compliment by that dogma of 
yours about there being no resurrection — involving, 
as it does, the conclusion that there was no resurrec- 
tion on that third day, when, as at all events reported 
among us, Joseph of Arimathea's new tomb was 
found empty, and he who was laid in it showed 
himself alive, in the body, by many infallible signs. 
You make us out to be not only poor preachers, but 
false witnesses; poor preachers, because if you are 
right, we merely amuse and beguile our hearers with 
an idle dream of corporeal felicity as a substitute for 
spiritual perfection ; and false witnesses, for we pro- 
fess to attest, as a fact, on personal knowledge, what 
on your principles must be a fable ; — " Yea, and we 
are found false witnesses of God ; because we have 
testified of God, that he raised up Christ : whom he 
raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." That, 
5 



50 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

however, is comparatively a small matter. What is 
far more important, is the bearing of your dogma on 
your own spiritual state. And, therefore, I repeat 
again what I said before, that since it sets aside the 
resurrection of your Lord, it cuts up by the roots the 
entire gospel system and method of man's recovery, 
and so renders that very spiritual resurrection itself, 
to the faith of which you cling, thoroughly and hope- 
lessly unattainable ; — " For if the dead rise not, then 
is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your 
faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 

But how is this ? How should the denial of the 
resurrection of Christ lead to so fatal a result ? How 
does it follow, that if Christ be not raised, my faith 
is vain, and I am yet in my sins ? 

The answer to this question is all important in its 
bearing on the real nature of the death of Christ, 
and the value, in a spiritual point of view, of his 
resurrection. Paul, indeed, apparently does not 
apprehend the necessity of an answer; he does not 
anticipate the putting of any such question at all. 
He seems to have thought that his brief and hasty 
logic — his rapid summary of inevitable consequences 
— would almost commend itself at once as self-evi- 
dent. And so it does, to one rightly informed and 
impressed by the teaching of the Scriptures on the 
subject of Christ's death, as doubtless many of those 
were to whom Paul addressed himself. It may have 
been, and probably was, partly at least, his purpose, 
rather to alarm such persons by an abrupt and start- 
ling appeal, than to convince them by long detailed 
argument. In this, the divine wisdom with which 



"YE ARE YET IN YOUR SINS." 51 

lie was endowed is apparent. To reason the matter 
fully out with such ingenious and speculative minds 
as he had to deal with, was the very way to set their 
suhtle intellects on edge, to throw them into a com- 
bative and controversial mood, and to pique their 
powers of argumentative, not to say sophistical, de- 
bate. A winged and pointed word of warning to 
their consciences, compelling them, if they were 
earnest men — compelling them as sinners hoping 
for salvation by grace alone — to pause and think, 
was far better. And such a word, fitted to make 
them ponder well, and ask in what their philoso- 
phizing or spiritualizing was like to land them — 
such a word in season was that pithy statement, left 
naked in all its solemn and awakening emphasis, 
unillustrated, unexplained ; — " For if the dead rise 
not, then is not Christ raised : and if Christ be not 
raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." 

Ye are yet in your sins, because Christ is yet jn 
your sins. And your faith, committing you to Christ, 
uniting you to Christ, makes you sharers with him 
in whatever is his condition, in whatever is his fate. 
You cannot be better off* than he is. The utmost 
your faith can do for you is to make you one with 
him, to bring you into fellowship with him, to iden- 
tify your interests with his, to secure that as he is, so 
you shall be. If, therefore, he is yet in your sins, 
then of necessity you must be yet in your sins also. 

He was " in your sins " when he died. They were 
about him ; they were upon him ; they were his. 
He owned, he felt them, to be his. "Innumerable 
evils have compassed me about ; mine iniquities have 



52 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look 
up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: 
therefore, my heart faileth me, (Psalm xl. 12.) So 
your iniquities took hold of him as if they were his 
own. He made them his own. Making common 
cause with you, putting himself in your place, he 
was in the midst of them, he was under them. I 
repeat, Jesus Christ our Lord was "in your sins" 
when he died. 

He was "in your sins" still when he was buried. 
They were still around him and upon him as he lay 
in the dark tomb. He had not got rid of them ; for he 
was still suffering their penalty, bearing their doom. 

And if he is not risen, he is even yet " in your 
sins;" your sins are around him and upon him even 
now. All your faith in him as able to save you 
from your sins is vain. " Ye are yet in your sins." 
Alas ! how hopelessly, if he who should have saved 
you from them, is yet in them himself. 

If this is the real force of the apostle's argument 
or appeal, and one can scarcely see how other- 
wise it has any meaning, it suggests very solemn 
thoughts as to Christ's communion with us, and 
ours, through faith, with him, in his death, his 
burial, and his resurrection. 

I. As to his death, it gives a character of stern 
and living reality to the statement, that " Christ 
died for our sins." He died for our sins, in the 
sense of dying in them ; literally and fully in that 
sense. Our sins were the occasion of his death. 
They made it necessary. They were the cause of 



CHRIST IN OUR SINS. 53 

it. He could not have saved us from our sins 
otherwise than by dying for our sins. He bare our 
sins; — "his own self bare our sins, in his own body, 
on the tree." (IPet. ii. 24.) 

How he bore them ; what his bearing of them 
implied; what unparalleled sufferings, what un- 
known agony; no heart of man can conceive. But 
we may partly understand in what character he 
bore our sins, and what relation he sustained to us 
in the bearing of them, if we consider what is here 
so impressively taught as to these sins of ours being 
really his, and his being really in them. They did 
actually so cleave to him at his death, as that, but 
for his rising from the dead, they must have been 
cleaving to him still. 

The supposition, indeed, is one which, in this 
view, can scarcely be entertained without a shud- 
der, as if it were on the verge of blasphemy; — the 
supposition, I mean, of Christ not having risen, 
considered thus in the light of the position which 
he occupied, and the character which he bore, 
when he died. Had it been possible for him to 
be "holden of death," he must have continued to 
occupy the position, and to bear the character, of 
the guilty criminals whom he represented when he 
died. Their sins, then laid on him, must have been 
upon him still. His purpose of saving them from 
their sins must have failed; he himself having 
become inextricably involved in their sins, and 
consequently involved also in what must in that 
case have turned out to be the irremediable and 
irretrievable ruin which their sins entailed on them. 

5* 



54 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Does not this prove conclusively the strictly 
penal and piacular or expiatory nature of the suf- 
ferings and death of Christ? He made our sins 
his own; he made them so thoroughly, so person- 
ally his own, when he died for them, that if he had 
continued in the state of death, he must have con- 
tinued in these sins of ours still. They must have 
adhered to him to this day. Their whole guilt, 
and the entire debt or obligation of their punish- 
ment, he made his own, and took upon himself. 

It was, in very deed, a vicarious death that he 
died. He identified himself with us as sinners, as 
being dead in our sins. He substituted himself for 
us, becoming himself dead; condemned, and bear- 
ing the condemnation in our stead. This is what 
is meant by his being the propitiation for our 
sins. Thus " Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for 
us." All vague, indefinite views of his great sacri- 
fice, as if it were a mere pageant or spectacle, — 
exhibiting in the crucified God-man God's holy 
love, and the surrender of man's will to that love, 
— and intended to operate by an influence similar 
to what a pure and high ideal of excellency exer- 
cises over a sensitive mind; all such views of 
Christ's sacrifice of atonement are set aside by 
this one consideration, — the tremendous conse- 
quence which his death must have involved if he 
had not risen from the dead. That consequence 
must have been nothing less than his continuing 
in the sins for which he died; in their guilt; in 
their condemnation. Can his death, then, be any 
thing else than a real and actual judicial transac- 



Christ's death a real atonement. 55 

tion, in which the blame, the criminality, of our 
sins is laid upon him, and he undergoes the sen- 
tence which we have incurred? "He made his 
soul an offering for sin." " The Lord laid on him 
the iniquity of us all." 

It is this view, and this view alone, of the death of 
Christ that shows us either the real moral nature, 
malignity, and ill desert of sin, or the real moral 
nature of that God with whom we have to do. 
There are many things in the system which God 
has established, and the government he exercises, 
by the ordinary universal laws of matter and mind, 
that show his opposition to sin. It is impossible 
to look intelligently at the order in which events 
follow one another, and the relations of cause and 
effect that control so regularly the course of affairs, 
without perceiving that the Ruler of all is one who 
hates evil and loves good. Sin and suffering are, 
in the long run, inseparably joined. As certainly 
as by the law of gravitation in the physical world, 
a body loosened from yonder heaven-reaching spire 
must reach the ground, so surely, by the law of 
holiness and love in the spiritual world, a soul 
loosened from heaven's high standard, must sink 
into the depths of hell's foul wrath and woe. All 
that is true; but it is not the whole truth. The 
divine administration, in its dealing with moral 
evil, is not the mere development of a self-acting 
and self-enforcing law, such as in the lapse of ages 
must, by its own force or influence, work out of 
the system whatever is opposed to it, and bring 
all intelligences and all hearts into harmony with 



56 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

itself. The moral law, of which sin is the trans- 
gression, is not snch a law as that to which a man, 
in some sense, runs counter when he thrusts his 
hand into the fire ; nor is the penalty with which 
the transgression of the former law is visited, of 
the same sort with the pain by which that other 
law may be said to avenge its own violation. The 
divine law is not only the image and exponent of 
the divine nature, it is the assertion and vindica- 
tion of the divine authority. There is a personal 
Lawgiver; a personal Judge ;• and he reckons per- 
sonally with the breakers of his law, as personal 
offenders against himself and his government. 
They are criminals. As criminals he judges them, 
and punishes them. Guilt and condemnation are 
terrible realities. They are seen to be so, when 
Christ is set forth crucified before our eyes ; 
treated as one guilty; condemned in our stead. 
His penal death on the cross proclaims the fatal 
demerit of sin, and the inexorable doom of judg- 
ment. 

II. The burial of Christ, viewed in the light of 
the apostle's argument, or appeal, is a fact of great 
significancy. There hangs, indeed, a cloud of mys- 
tery over the interval that elapsed between the death 
and the resurrection of our Lord. It is a dark eclipse. 
It is as if there were a solemn pause in the march 
of time. In heaven, in hell, there is an awful sus- 
pense. Alas ! it is on earth alone that this last of 
the Jewish Sabbaths passes away, just as usual, with 
little heed of that sepulchre which if men had only 



CHRIST IN HIS BURIAL STILL BEARING OUR SINS. 57 

known what it meant, might well have stopped 
every pulse, and hushed the whole world in breath- 
less silence. 

"He made his grave with the wicked." Whose 
grave is thus made with the wicked ? The grave 
of him who "had done no violence, neither was 
any deceit in his mouth." That he died a felon's 
death, we know. And now we learn that he fills a 
felon's grave. So thoroughly does he identify him- 
self with us, so completely does he make our case 
his own, that not only our penal death is his, but our 
penal burial too. He died for our sins, for he died 
in them. He was buried also in our sins. They 
were with him where he lay when his grave was 
with the wicked. It is true his human soul was 
that very day in Paradise ; in the bosom of his God 
and Father. His soul has made an offering for 
sin ; he has poured out his soul unto death ; he has 
commended his spirit into his Father's hands; he 
has said, It is finished. And so it is. The cup is 
drunk. The curse is borne. The agony is past. 
But he is not yet freed from his vicarious partner- 
ship with us in our sins. His grave is to be with 
the wicked. The man Christ Jesus, as to his whole 
manhood, body as well as soul, has not yet got rid 
of our sins. They are with him; they are upon 
him; he is in them; while he lies, as to his dis- 
honored body, in that dark and narrow cell. 

For the whole doom of our guilt, as well as our 
guilt itself, he must make his own. The full 
penalty of our sins ; the whole legal consequences 
and judicial punishment of that iniquity of us all 



58 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

wliicli the Lord laid on him, he must bear; wrath, 
condemnation, the sword of vengeance; the sever- 
ance also of soul and body; the fulfillment of the 
sentence, dust to dust; the lying of the body in the 
vile earth. Therefore — because he thus makes our 
sins so thoroughly his own, in all their guilt, and 
in the full measure of their righteously deserved 
doom; — therefore, he is our Saviour; "the Lamb 
of God that taketh away the sin of the world." 

III. He is declared, he is proved to be so, by his 
resurrection from the dead. Up to the moment of 
his resurrection, he is bearing our sins. Whether it 
be in the one part, or in the other, of that nature of 
ours which he assumed for this very end, he is still 
bearing our sins. In his soul he bore them, when 
his Father hid his face from him ; when his Father's 
sword pierced him ; when the exceeding bitter cry 
was wrung from him, " My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me." In his flesh he bore them, 
when the nails lacerated his feet, and the spear 
opened his side ; when death's thirst parched his 
lips, and his body, scarce cold, was hurried to the 
rich man's tomb, where his grave was to be with 
the wicked. All the time he was in that grave our 
sins were cleaving to him ; he was in them. They 
had done the worst to his soul; that unutterable 
and unknown anguish was over. But they had not 
let go his body. His body was still underlying and 
undergoing the curse. He was not rid of these 
sins of ours which he made his own. And if he is 
not risen, he is not rid of them even now. 



CHRIST "NOT IN OUR SINS" NOW. 59 

then, how can lie ever rid us of them, if he is 
not rid of them himself? "We may believe in him 
ever so sincerely, we may trust and love him ever 
so well, we may be ever so willing to give ourselves 
to him, and be one with him, and make common 
cause with him, as he makes common cause with 
us. But it is a common cause of despair, of ruin, 
if in respect of any part of his human nature, our 
sins are on him, and he is in them, still ! Well 
may Paul say, " If Christ be not raised, your faith 
is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 

But on the other hand, if Christ is risen, how 
complete, how surely and gloriously complete is 
our deliverance ! He is rid of our sins now. And 
if we are in him, we are rid of them too, in the 
very same sense, and to the very same extent, 
that he is. He was in them once ; in their guilt, 
in their curse; so thoroughly in them that there 
was no escape for him either from a criminal's 
death, or from a criminal's grave. But he is not in 
them now. Nor are we, if we>are in him. " There 
is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ." 
Our faith in him is not now vain: for "he died for 
our sins, and rose again for our justification." 



DISCOURSE IV. 



Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this 
life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. — 
1 Corinthians xv. 18, 19. 



npHIS is the climax and close, for the present, of 
-*- the apostle's argument concerning the resur- 
rection, in its negative form. He reasons with the 
deniers of the doctrine, after the manner of what 
is technically called in logic reductio ad absurdum; 
pointing out the conclusion in which their denial 
must, by a few short and necessary steps, inevitably 
land them. 

This is a perfectly legitimate and warrantable 
mode of reasoning, if, in using it, I avoid the too 
common unfairness of imputing to my adversary 
the actual holding of dogmas, or principles, which 
may seem to me to follow from the proposition he 
is maintaining, but which he himself does not see 
or admit to be implied in it. To candid minds, it 
is a mode of reasoning fitted to be very convincing. 
Show me that my views, if reasoned out, or acted 
out, lead to consequences from which I recoil as 
much as you do; and I cannot but be moved to 
reconsider the grounds on which I have adopted 
them. 

In the present instance, if there were any in the 



CONSEQUENTIAL REASONING. 61 

church of Corinth who had been unwarily led to 
acquiesce in the opinion that there is no resurrec- 
tion of the dead — fascinated, perhaps, by its plausi- 
ble appearance of spirituality, glad to get rid of the 
offence of a carnal and material immortality, and 
fain to take refuge in the more refined idea of the 
soul's recovered independence of the body here, 
and its entire emancipation from the body here- 
after — what could be more likely to make them 
pause, than the apostle's simple and solemn state- 
ment, pointing out the length to which, if they 
adhered to that opinion, they must be prepared 
to go? 

Have you thought seriously of the bearing of your 
new belief on your Saviour's work, and on your own 
faith and hope ? Study it, and look at it, in that 
light. If you refuse to do so, under pretence of be- 
ing so very impartial as to judge of it on its own 
proper evidence and merits exclusively, you are, in 
fact, forming a partial and one-sided estimate of it ; 
— you are unwilling to open your "eyes to the whole 
truth. But you are not thus prejudiced. You are 
ready to consider what this general denial of a lite- 
ral resurrection involves. Then surely you must 
perceive, that at all eyents, and in the first place, it 
involves a denial of the resurrection of Christ. How- 
ever you may try to explain the fact of the Lord's 
empty sepulchre, and these strange words, reported 
to have been uttered by him, " Handle me, and see, 
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me 
have," it must have been a spirit after all that spoke. 
It might be Christ, as he disappeared, when having 
6 



62 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

cried with aloud voice, "Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit," he gave up the ghost. It could 
not be Christ with anything upon him of that mate- 
rial frame which thereafter hung for a little louger, 
empty, on the cross, and was then hastily buried in 
Joseph's tomb. Your doctrine, that there is no res- 
urrection of the dead, with the ground on which 
you defend it, — the essential vileness of matter, and 
its incompatibility with a perfect state of being, — 
makes that impossible. Plainly, if there be no res- 
urrection of the dead, Christ is not risen. Are you 
prepared to face such a result of your philosophy ? 

Then you must be prepared to face also what im- 
mediately follows from it. I do not speak of your 
virtually giving the lie to our testimony as apostles ; 
a testimony which can be corroborated, if need be, 
by five hundred other witnesses. That might be 
comparatively a small matter. But you cut up by 
the roots the gospel which we preach, and your own 
faith founded upon it. For of what use is your faith, 
uniting you to Christ, and giving you an interest in 
Christ, as dying for your sins, if the death which 
they entailed on him has not been wholly reversed, 
undone, destroyed ? If in any respect, and to any 
effect, with reference to any p#rt of his person, these 
sins of yours, for which, and in which, he died, have 
proved permanently fatal to him, how can he redeem 
you from them ? "If Christ be not raised, your faith 
is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." 

And if it be so with you, what of those who are 
dead and gone ? You still live, and may try some 
other way of getting quit of your sins, if that which 
has hitherto satisfied you now fails. You may try 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 63 

some new doctrine or discipline of perfection, based 
on that very spiritualizing of the resurrection which 
upsets your old faith in the atonement. But alas ! 
for your brethren and friends, who have perilled their 
all on what now, it seems, turns out to be an error ; 
— " Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ 
are perished." Our case, in fact — the case of all of 
us, living and dead — is sufficiently deplorable ; — " If 
in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all 
men most miserable." 

I. "Then they also which are fallen asleep in 
Christ are perished." They have perished. This 
does not mean that upon the supposition made, they 
have ceased to exist. The question of the continued 
existence of men after death is not raised in the ar- 
gument. It is a mistake to say that in reasoning on 
the subject of the resurrection of the body, the apos- 
tle loses sight of the distinction between that par- 
ticular doctrine and the general doctrine of man's im- 
mortality. It is a mistake also to think that in this 
verse he is teaching the dependence of either doc- 
trine on the admission of the fact of Christ's resur- 
rection. His statement is not put thus : Then they 
also which are fallen asleep in Christ shall never rise 
again; their bodies shall never be raised. That 
would be a true statement. It is an inference or de- 
duction of which Paul may afterwards make use. 
But it is not his point here. Neither is his statement 
put thus : Then they also which are fallen asleep in 
Christ, have undergone total and final annihilation. 
That idea is not once suggested in the whole of this 
chapter. The glorious resurrection of the bodies of 



64 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

his believing people may be connected with the res- 
urrection of Christ ; so that if his resurrection, as a 
matter of fact, is denied, their resurrection, as a mat- 
ter of doctrine, must be denied also. But it does 
not follow that their spiritual immortality, or con- 
tinued existence out of the body, is on that account 
denied. It does not follow that they must have per- 
ished, in the sense of ceasing to exist ; even although 
one should maintain that Christ did not resume his 
buried body, and that they, consequently, are not to 
resume theirs. 

The fact is, what the apostle has in his view, as to 
those who are fallen asleep in Christ, is not their 
perishing, in the sense of ceasing to exist, either in 
the body or out of the body; but their perishing in 
the sense of not being saved, but being lost. It is a 
far more solemn and awful conclusion that he asks 
you to face concerning the pious dead than either of 
these two: — either first, that they are not to live 
again in the body, or secondly, that they are not to 
survive and live after death at all. 

The first of these conclusions, as flowing from the 
denial of the fact of Christ's resurrection, a spiritual- 
ist, jealous of physical impurity, and enamored of 
an ideal immaterial perfection, might rather hail and 
welcome, than repudiate. Such a consequence de- 
duced from his belief would not alarm or shock him. 
The second of these conclusions, again, he would 
deny to be logical or legitimate. I do not see, he 
might urge, how the fact, if it be a fact — and you 
say it must be a fact, upon my view of the resurrec- 
tion being present and spiritual, not future and cor- 
poreal ; — I do not see how the fact of there having 



THEY THAT SLEEP IN CHRIST " ARE PERISHED." 65 

been no corporeal resurrection in the case of Christ, 
any more than I expect that there will be a corporeal 
resurrection in the case of his followers, implies that 
they cease to exist after death, any more than he 
ceased to exist 'sifter death. He would have had an 
immortal life, even if his body had not been raised. 
So they may have an immortal life also in him, even 
although you shut me up into the admission that his 
body has not been raised. 

Such might have been a fair rejoinder or reply, if 
the apostle's argument in this eighteenth verse were 
to be understood as having reference to the mere 
continuance of life, embodied or disembodied, in the 
other world. Do you mean to argue thus : If Christ 
be not raised, then they also who have fallen asleep 
in Christ have perished — in this sense, that nothing 
of those corporeal frames of theirs which we bury is 
afterwards to reappear, and be revived? I accept 
that result. Or do you mean to argue thus : That 
upon that supposition they perish, in the sense of 
their not surviving at all, but being altogether anni- 
hilated? I do not see how that follows. Nay, for 
that matter, one of the looser sort among these know- 
ing ones might add, if it does follow, I do not shrink 
from it. You may try to prove to me that the denial 
of Christ's resurrection involves the denial of con- 
tinued and immortal existence, personality, and re- 
sponsibility after death. I cannot perceive that it 
does so. But even if it did, what then ? Let us 
all the more " eat and drink, since to-morrow we 
die." 

"What the apostle really reasons about is not im- 

6* 



66 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

mortality, whether spiritual or corporeal, but salva- 
tion. The conclusion to which he shuts up those 
with whom he is arguing, is not that they who have 
fallen asleep in Christ have perished, in the sense of 
not living again in the body ; nor that they have 
perished, in the sense of not continuing to live at 
all ; but that they have perished in the sense of their 
being lost as guilty and unsaved sinners ; irremedia- 
bly lost; hopelessly and irrecoverably consigned to 
everlasting perdition. 

The statement or argument, in short, concerning 
believers who have died, is immediately connected 
with the statement or argument concerning believers 
who are living. "If Christ be not risen," ye who 
still live, although you believe in Christ, " are yet in 
your sins." "If Christ be not raised," your depart- 
ed brethren, although they fell asleep in Christ, must 
have died in their sins, and must even now be reap- 
ing the fruit of their sins, in condemnation and utter 
ruin — and that for ever. If Christ be not raised, you 
now believe in vain ; you believe in one who cannot 
save you from your sins, seeing that he is not him- 
self saved from them. And your friends who have 
fallen asleep in Christ have believed in vain. They 
fell asleep believing in one who could not save them. 
They are lost, therefore, finally ; they have perished. 

Are you prepared for that consequence, inevitably 
flowing from this speculation of yours about the res- 
urrection? Are you prepared, not only to make 
void your own faith, which hitherto has sustained 
you in the hope of your salvation from your sins, 
but to make void also the faith of venerated fathers, 
beloved brothers and sisters, whose peace, as they 



HOPE IN CHRIST. 67 

fell asleep in Jesus, depended altogether on the as- 
surance of justification through his resurrection from 
the dead ? "Was it a lie that these holy men and 
women grasped in their right hand, when they walk- 
ed so fearlessly through the valley of the shadow of 
death ? And are their eyes now opened in that other 
world to the sad and awful truth, that for all their 
faith in Christ, they are yet in their sins ; that they 
have believed in one who died, indeed, for their sins, 
but is not, to this hour, himself extricated from 
them ? Is theirs, also, as well as yours, the melan- 
choly complaint of disappointment and despair — 
" We trusted that it had been he who should have 
redeemed us?" 

Surely this is a startling appeal, well fitted to make 
the boldest innovator pause. 

II. For in truth the innovation involves us all, the 
dead and the living, who have believed in Christ, in 
one common ruin ; — " If in this life only we have 
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." 

Is there exaggeration in this utterance ? — the ex- 
aggeration of rhetoric or of feeling ? Is it an over- 
strained emotion, partly of enthusiasm — partly, also, 
of vexation and annoyance — that here breaks out ? 

So it might seem, if the point at issue were either 
the resurrection of the body, or the immortality of 
the soul ; if the question were merely, as to the first, 
Are we to live again in the body ? or even, as to 
the second, Are we to continue to live after death at 
all? 

Thus, as to the first, it doos not clearly appear how 
believers in Christ should be of all men most miser- 



68 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

able, even though it should turn out that they are not 
to live again in the body. There is enough surely, 
in that immortal blessedness into which they enter 
when they depart and are with Christ, " absent from 
the body and present with the Lord," to be a com- 
pensation, and far more than a compensation for all 
the toil, hardship, self-denial and persecution which, 
for a few short years, their faith in Christ may entail 
upon them here. They may be more in trouble than 
other men ; they may be more plagued than other 
men ; there may even be bands in their death from 
which other men are exempt. But if, when all on 
earth is over, the Lord Jesus receives their spirits, 
even though their bodies are to be wholly left behind 
for ever, — if that is their hope, — they cannot well 
be said to be " of all men most miserable." 

Nay, take even the other supposition. Let the 
case or hypothesis put be that of their not continuing 
to live at all. Let that be the conclusion to which 
the denial of Christ's resurrection shuts us up; 
namely, that we have no evidence or assurance of 
even the spiritual part of us surviving our bodily 
dissolution. Still, believers in Christ need not be 
condoled with, they are scarcely entitled to con- 
dole with one another, as being " of all men most 
miserable." They have, at least, as good pros- 
pects and presumptions with reference to the life 
to come, as that great Roman orator and philoso- 
pher had, who, in the evening of life, amid the 
wreck and ruin of earth's holiest ties, would not 
let go his grasp of immortality. "If it prove to 
be a dream, I can be none the worse for it; mean- 
while, by means of it, I have fellowship with the 



THE HOPE OF SALVATION FROM SIN. 69 

excellent who are gone." And — which is more 
than the wisest and best heathen ever had — they 
enjoy, in their experience, or imagination, of peace 
with God and reconciliation to him, what may well 
make their present life not wretched, but most en- 
viable, even though it should be a life of incessant 
trial, and a life that is to terminate conclusively at 
death. 

What, then, is the precise ground of the apostles' 
earnest ejaculation, "If in this life only we have 
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable?" 

It is in entire accordance with his previous argu- 
ment. It proceeds upon the inference or deduction, 
that if Christ be not raised, the very peace and re- 
conciliation, which make this life at its worst not 
only tolerable, but even desirable to believers in 
Jesus, are themselves a delusion. In this life we 
have hope in Christ. And there may be pleasure 
in such hope in Christ while it lasts. But it is a 
hope which, if there be, as there assuredly is, a 
hereafter, will be found to be utterly hollow and 
untrue. For it is the hope, it is the faith of 
our being saved from our sins. But we are not 
saved from our sins if Christ be not raised. On 
the contrary, we are yet in our sins. Whatever 
hope we have in Christ, as regards our being saved 
from our sins, rests on what, it seems, is an error 
and fable. It cannot last beyond this present life. 
At death, if we survive death, when we fall asleep 
in Christ, we shall too surely discover — as "they 
which have fallen asleep in Christ ' ' before us have 
already discovered — that our faith is vain, and our 
hope delusive; that since Christ is not raised, we 



70 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

are yet in our sins; and alas! must continue in our 
sins for ever. 

Is not this truly a miserable case ? If it is really 
ours, are we not deeply to be pitied? are we not "of 
all men most miserable?" 

The "hope in Christ," then, of which Paul speaks, 
is not the hope of the resurrection ; — nor even the 
hope of immortality; — but the hope which has for 
its object the pardon, the favor, the approbation, 
the love of the Most High. It is the hope which 
cheers the broken heart of the man whose sin has 
found him out, when first, amid the anguish of 
his godly shame and sorrow, his eye fixes itself on 
Jesus lifted up on the cross, a sacrifice for sin. It 
is a hope which, if it be well founded, it is rapture 
to him to cherish, for present peace and pure joy 
in God, apart from all thought of what is to befall 
him in the future. 

Yes ! If it be well founded. But if you fling a 
cold doubt across that great fact on which it is 
built; if he to whom the Holy Ghost has been 
moving me to look as dying for my sins, may, 
after all, not have risen again ; if my sins are 
still upon him, keeping his body in the tomb; if, 
through his bearing my guilt, the precious dust 
of that holy human frame, which the Holy Ghost 
prepared for him in the Virgin's womb, is lost 
inextricably and irrecoverably in the common dust 
of this doomed earth, the ground cursed for man's 
sin ; — if thus the great Redeemer himself has failed 
to procure, even in his own case, a reversal of the 
sentence, dust to dust; — if the very "ransom God 



NO SALVATION IF NO RESURRECTION. 71 

has found to deliver from going down to the pit" 
is itself marred, and the person of Emanuel is no 
more complete, as it was when it was formed within 
the womb of his mother Mary; — if the grave has 
triumphed, and the expiation has broken down ; in 
a word, if Christ is not raised, and they who have 
believed on him for the remission of their sins, are 
in their sins still, and die in their sins, and perish 
in their sins ; — Oh ! what better is my hope to me 
than the hope of the hypocrite, whose " soul, what- 
ever he has gained, God taketh away!" 

"If in this life only we have hope in Christ!" 
Any hope we can have in Christ respecting the for- 
giveness of our sins, must, on the supposition now 
made, be a hope which we can have only in this 
life. "We may cling to it, and lean on it, for a little 
longer, while we live. We may desperately grasp 
it as the only solace of our anxious souls. We may 
try earnestly to persuade ourselves that there is for 
us an atonement — that there is for us a pardon in 
Christ. 

But the atonement; what is it? — the pardon; 
where is it? — if our sins, for which Christ died, 
are upon him still? 

The bubble must one day burst. The fond per- 
suasion, the nattering hope, must be cut off. At 
death, if not before, we must be awakened to the 
discovery that, believing in Christ for the saving of 
our souls from sin, we have believed in vain. We 
are yet in our sins after all. We perish, as they 
who have fallen asleep in Jesus before us have per- 
ished, hopelessly and for ever. 



72 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Well might Paul say, " If this be so, we are of all 
men most miserable." 

It is not that he is formally comparing himself 
and his fellow-believers with the rest of mankind. 
When he calls himself the "chief of sinners," he is 
not measuring himself by others. It is of himself 
alone, and of his own aggravated guilt, that he is 
there thinking. So it is here. It is himself and 
his fellow-believers alone that he has in his mind, 
when, using the strongest language he can think 
of, he cries — "If in this life only we have hope in 
Christ, we are of all men most miserable!" 

Yes. We are so ! We who have had our eyes 
opened to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and 
the infinite preciousness of salvation from sin ! 

If our hope is dashed ; if it is found to be a hope 
which, however we may cling to it for a while, 
must fail us at the last ; we cannot fall back again 
upon the fat, contented slumber of easy unconcern 
and worldly security. Our natural peace has been 
broken. Our consciences have been pricked. Our 
hearts have been stirred. We have been made to 
know ourselves and to know our God. We have 
been forced to feel what every sin of ours deserves, 
and how terrible a thing it is to fall into the hands 
of the living God. 

We had got a hope, a trembling hope, of the for- 
giveness of sin, and the favor of God, being ours. 
It was a hope built and based on a satisfying atone- 
ment having been offered on our behalf by the 
Eternal Son, through the Eternal Spirit, to the 
Eternal Father; — offered on our behalf, and ac- 



CHRIST RISEN THE ONLY SAVIOUR FROM SIN. 73 

ceptecl too. Our conviction of its having been an 
adequate satisfaction — our faith in its having been 
accepted — rested on this belief, that whatever our 
sins when he died for them, brought on Christ, had 
been reversed, canceled, undone. 

But you tell us, no. The ruin of his body was 
irreparable. Our sins slew his body, and it lies slain 
to this hour. 

Then where is our hope ? Where is the hope we 
so fondly cherished, that our sins were fully atoned 
for; their guilt expiated; their condemnation tho- 
roughly taken away? They still keep Christ's body 
in the grave which, being himself righteous, he made 
with the wicked. They must keep us, soul and body, 
in the doom which we, wicked as we are, brought on 
him, the Righteous One. It is, on that supposition, 
a doom from which he is not himself completely de- 
livered. How then can he deliver us ? They must 
keep us, these sins of ours, in that doom of guilt and 
ruin evermore. 

Is not that enough to make us miserable, " most 
miserable ?" What matters this present life, with its 
gleam, its spark of hope, kindled by the death of 
Christ, if that is to be the end of it ? 

Touch our hope, as you do touch our hope, of the 
full, free, everlasting forgiveness of our sins, through 
Christ dying for our sins and rising again, and are 
we not most miserable? We cannot in any other 
way find rest or peace. We cannot lay any flatter- 
ing unction to our souls, as if we might, somehow, 
otherwise be saved. We cannot do without the 
atonement. 
7 



74 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

And must it not be misery to conclude that, after 
all, he whom we have admired, believed, trusted, 
loved, cannot save us ? — that in spite of his dying for 
our sins, we are yet in our sins ? — that, like others 
who have gone before us, when we fall asleep in him, 
we perish ? 

But it is not so. Christ is risen from the dead. 
He who was dead, is alive for evermore. Therefore, 
we live now; — we who believe in him. And they 
live too ; — they who have fallen asleep in him. Death 
could not hold him : no ; not any part of him. Sin 
could not destroy him : no ; not any part of him. 
He goes down to the pit. But see ! He comes forth, 
leaving no part of him behind. Therefore, guilt is 
expiated. Therefore, the ransom is sufficient. There- 
fore, the redemption is complete. Therefore, we, as 
well as our predecessors in the life of faith, have a 
hope which neither death nor sin can touch. 

They have not perished. Though absent from the 
body, they live now. In the body they are to live 
hereafter. No part of them has fallen, or is to fall, a 
victim, either to death or to sin. 

We, also, believing, are not in our sins. No wrath 
for sin is upon us now. No death for sin awaits us 
at last. Ours now is a life in Christ, free from the 
doom of guilt. Our death is not penal. When we 
fall asleep in Christ, we do not perish. 

In the risen Saviour, then, let us rejoice to hope. 
In the risen Saviour let us rejoice to have fellow- 
ship, in our hope, with all them that have already 
fallen asleep in Christ. They have fallen asleep, as 
we hope to fall asleep, not to perish, but to have ever- 
lasting life. 



DISCOURSE V. 

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them 
that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resur- 
rection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all 
be made alive. But every man in his own order : Christ the first-fruits ; 
afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. — 1 Corinthians xv. 
20—23. 

TT^ROM the dreary supposition on which he has been 
reasoning, in order to expose the miserable con- 
sequences which it involves, the apostle gladly turns 
to the glorious fact and its glorious issue : " But now 
is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first- 
fruits of them that slept." 

Enough ! one seems to hear him saying to himself 
— enough, and more than enough of this base hypo- 
thesis. I will not argue upon it — I will not look at 
it — any longer. You see to what your notion about 
there being no resurrection leads you. It forces you 
to deny the resurrection of Christ. And if you deny 
that, you are landed, for yourselves and for those who 
have gone before you, in the cheerless and hopeless 
gloom of absolute despair. 

But, come now, let us admit the fact, Christ is 
risen ; you know that Christ is risen. Confess that, 
when you began to entertain that new opinion about 
the only possible resurrection being a spiritual one, 
you did not perceive its bearing on the resurrection 
of Christ. Confess that you cannot face the conclu- 



76 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

sion which forces itself upon you, now that you do 
perceive that. ~No. You cannot spare from your 
creed the fact or doctrine of your Saviour's resurrec- 
tion. He is risen. And if he is risen, the resurrec- 
tion of the body must be possible. There is, there 
must be, a resurrection of the dead. For " Christ 
is risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of 
them that slept." His resurrection implies and en- 
sures theirs. 

How it does so, we are now to inquire. What is 
the nature of the connection between Christ's resur- 
rection and that of them that sleep in him ? 

It is not said, either here, or anywhere else in 
Scripture, that the resurrection of the dead generally 
is a consequence of the resurrection of Christ ; that 
apart from him there would have been no resurrec- 
tion at all. There is no reason to believe that the 
general resurrection of the dead is any part of the 
remedial and mediatorial economy, or is in any sense 
the result of the interposition of a Redeemer. If 
man had not sinned, it is probable that the succes- 
sive generations of the human family, as one after 
another they completed their probation here, — walk- 
ing with God, — would have been translated in the 
body, as Enoch and Elijah were, to some other re- 
gion in the universe, where they might be kept in 
rest and glory until the entire race was gathered in. 
But sin entered, and death by sin. If there had 
been no provision of salvation, it is equally probable 
that the separation of the soul from the body would 
not have been for ever. When " death had passed 
upon all men, because all had sinned," they would 



THE GENERAL RESURRECTION. 77 

all have been raised up — to stand again before God 
in the body, and receive in the body the sentence of 
the second death, the due reward of their deeds done 
in the body; " Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." 
It cannot, therefore, be the general resurrection of 
mankind universally that the apostle here connects 
with the resurrection of Christ. If Christ had not 
come at all, if he had neither died nor risen from the 
dead, there would have been a general resurrection 
of mankind universally notwithstanding. It is the 
resurrection of the just alone that is meant. And 
even as regards the resurrection of the just, it is not 
the mere fact that they are to rise again that is con- 
nected with the fact of Christ's having risen. His 
resurrection is not really the procuring cause or con- 
dition of their resurrection. It is simply the cause 
and condition of their resurrection being not a res- 
urrection of damnation, but a resurrection of life and 
glory. 

"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become 
the first-fruits of them that slept." They, therefore, 
who are fallen asleep in Christ are not perished. 
They have not gone down to the pit of utter and 
endless ruin. Their union to Christ, their interest 
in Christ, secures for them a participation in his res- 
urrection, and consequently, in addition to whatever 
present benefit it may confer, it secures to them ulti- 
mately a resurrection of the same kind as his. 

Is that a hope for yourselves, and for your brethren 
who have gone before you, to be lightly thrown 

away? Is not the inference to be drawn from an 

7* 



78 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

admission of Christ's resurrection better than that 
which a denial of it entails? Who among you now 
would take offence at what some scout as the mate- 
rialistic idea of a literal bodily resurrection ? Would 
the most sensitive spiritualist among you still persist 
in saying that there is no resurrection of the dead, 
when it is such a resurrection that is pointed at? 
For the question is now seen to turn on this simple 
but most serious and weighty alternative; — either 
Christ is not raised, and they which are fallen asleep 
in Christ are perished ; — or Christ is raised, and is 
become the first-fruits of them that slept. 

Thus, the principle upon which the apostle pro- 
ceeds is the same when he reasons on the assumption 
of Christ's resurrection beiifg admitted, as when he 
argues on the hypothesis of its being denied. That 
principle is the substantial oneness of Christ and his 
believing people. Your faith unites you to Christ, 
and identifies you with him. It commits you to 
share his fortune. It involves you in his destiny, 
whatever that may be. If Christ be not risen, then, 
since he died for your sins, and in your sins, — con- 
tinuing dead, he continues in your sins still ; they 
are upon him still ; he has not got rid of them. ISTor 
have you. You are yet in your sins ; you die in your 
sins. In spite of all your faith in Christ, nay, in that 
case, on account of your faith in Christ, you perish. 
But if Christ is risen, your sins, for which, and in 
which, he died, are upon him no more. Nor are they 
now any more upon you. Their guilt, their condem- 
nation, cleaves no more to him. There is therefore 
now no condemnation to you who are in him. You 



THE TWO ECONOMIES. 79 

are not now in your sins ; you do not die in your sins ; 
you fall asleep in Jesus. You are for a time to be as 
he was, when his body rested in Joseph's tomb. But, 
ere long, you are to be as he is, now that he has risen 
from the dead. Your union to Christ, which would 
be your destruction if Christ were not risen, now 
that he is risen, is your life and glory. Your union 
to Christ, therefore, is the explanation of the connec- 
tion between his resurrection and yours. It is be- 
cause Christ and you are one by faith, that his resur- 
rection involves yours, and yours is of the same kind 
as his. You are yourselves in him ; and your resur- 
rection, consequently, is also in him ; his resurrection 
is yours. 

You are in Christ, all of you who believe, all of 
you who, w T hen you fall asleep, fall asleep in Christ ; 
— of whom Christ is the first-fruits. You are in 
Christ, in the same sense in which all of you are in 
Adam. The two economies ; the original and the 
remedial ; the original economy of nature, or of law 
working death, and the remedial economy of grace, 
with its resurrection of the dead ; have several fea- 
tures in common for those who have experience of 
both. 

Thus, in the first place, in both economies there is 
representation ; — " For since by man came death, by 
man came also the resurrection of the dead." It 
is by or through a representative man that death 
reaches you. It is by or through a representative 
man that the resurrection of life awaits you. Christ, 
in his resurrection, represents you, precisely as Adam, 
when he incurred death, represented you. Man, a 



80 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

man, the first Adam, representing you, sins and dies. 
Man, a man, the man Christ Jesus, the second Adam, 
representing you, takes away sin and rises from the 
dead. The connection between you and the man by 
whom comes death, as well as the connection be- 
tween you and the man by whom comes the resur- 
rection of the dead, is a connection of representa- 
tion. In both cases alike you are dealt with on the 
principle of representation. A representative man 
is constituted, by whom there comes to you whom he 
represents, either weal or woe. 

This is an act of mere sovereignty on the part of 
God. It is an arrangement, or dispensation, of which 
no account can be given, excepting only that such is 
the divine appointment, such is the divine will. 

Secondly, in both economies there is union; — 
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ, shall all 
be made alive." Those who are here spoken of — 
believers who are said to fall asleep in Christ — are 
all in Adam, and therefore they all die. They are all 
in Christ, and therefore they shall all be made alive. 
They are all in Adam, not only as being represented 
by Adam, but also as being one with him ; partakers 
of his nature ; inheritors of the loss and damage 
which his nature sustained when he sinned and fell. 
They are all likewise in Christ, not only as being rep- 
resented by him, but also as becoming one with 
him ; partakers of his nature ; associated with him 
in his relation to the Father ; in his righteousness, 
life, and glory. They all in Adam die ; they all in 
Christ shall be made alive. 

The representation, in short, is through union. 



REPRESENTATION THROUGH UNION. 81 

"We are represented by another, because we are, or 
we are to become, one with him who represents us. 
This is not necessarily the principle of representa- 
tion. It is not always so. Whether the representa- 
tive is chosen by us, or chosen for us, it may be a 
purely arbitrary arrangement, a simple exercise of 
discretion. Beyond its being settled and understood, 
that by what he does, as our representative, we stand 
or fall, there may be no real connection formed be- 
tween him and us. When God, however, deals with 
us on the principle of representation, he deals with 
us as really one with him who represents us. There 
is, no doubt, in such a procedure, an act of absolute 
sovereignty on the part of God. He wills that one 
should represent us. But he wills also that the rep- 
resentation should rest on the substantive ground 
of union. That there may be representation, he se- 
cures or effects union. You are in the man Adam, 
by whom comes death. You are in the man Christ 
Jesus, by whom comes the resurrection of the dead. 
It is as being in Adam by nature, that you all die 
the death which comes by him. It is as being in 
Christ by grace, that you shall all be made alive with 
the life, the resurrection of the dead, which comes 
by him. 

It is a real union, in either case, though different- 
ly ordained and constituted. It is by necessity of 
nature in the one case ; it is by election of grace in 
the other. It is hereditary in the one case ; it is per- 
sonal in the other. It is involuntary and without 
consent on your part in the one case ; it is with your 
own full and free concurrence and choice in the other. 



.4 



82 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

You are in Adam, in the man by whom came death, 
as his natural seed — inheriting, by descent from him, 
his standing character, and fortune, as the first rep- 
resentative man ; and you cannot help yourselves. 
You are in him whether you will or not. You are 
not thus in Christ, in the man by whom came the 
resurrection of the dead. You are not in him by 
any general or universal law of nature. You are in 
him by a special act of grace towards you, and a spe- 
cial work of grace in you. You are in him, not by 
your natural birth, but by your new spiritual birth ; 
not by any baptism of water, which may be without 
intelligence on your part and without consent, but 
by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, making you the 
Lord's willing people in the day of his power. 

If it be thus then that you are in Christ — intelli- 
gently, willingly, by grace, through faith ; if it be 
thus that you are in that second representative man, 
by whom came the resurrection of the dead ; is it 
not even more clear and more demonstrably certain 
that you must share his destiny, than it could ever 
be that you must participate in the fault and fate of 
the first man by whom came death ? You do not 
believe in vain when you believe in him by whom 
came the resurrection of the dead. It is not in vain, 
or for nothing, that you are found in him. You so 
believe in him, and are so found in him, that he and 
you are henceforth inseparably one ; and whatever 
he is, you are to be. Therefore, as in Adam you all 
die, even so, nay, rather much more, in Christ you 
shall all be made alive. His resurrection from the 
dead, his glorious life, as risen from the dead, is 
yours. 



SUBORDINATION OF BELIEVERS UNDER CHRIST. 83 

It is yours in due time, in due order. For, third- 
ly, as there is representation in both of the econo- 
mies that are here contrasted, and as in both of them 
the representation is through union, so in both of 
them also there is subordination. Especially there 
is subordination in the economy of life ; — " But every 
man in his own order : Christ the first-fruits ; after- 
ward they that are Christ's at his coming." 

That the principle of representation may be kept 
clear and entire, there is a distinction of order or 
rank between the representative man Christ Jesus, 
and those whom he represents. It is most fitting 
that it should be so. The sheaf of the first-fruits at 
the passover, severed from the ripening crop, of 
which it was the pledge and earnest, had its place 
apart.* It was, itself alone, waved before the Lord, 
and accepted for the people. Then, in due course 
and order, came the general harvest. The sheaf of 
the first-fruits of the harvest now, is Christ our pass- 
over, sacrificed for us. For " Christ is risen, and be- 
come the first-fruits of them that slept." He is him- 
self alone the first-fruits. That is his position, his 
rank, and order. Most gladly and gratefully do you 
concede it to him. And most cheerfully do you con- 
sent to wait, that the due distinction may be observ- 
ed between the sheaf of the first-fruits waved before 



* And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children 
of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I 
give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring 
a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest : And he 
shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you : on the 
morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. — Lev. xxiii. 9-11. 



84 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the Lord, and the rich harvest-home that it inaugur- 
ates, and sanctifies, and blesses. Yes : " Every man 
in his own order : Christ the first-fruits ; afterward 
they that are Christ's at his coming." 

"At his coming." For he who presents himself 
as the first-fruits, is himself to present you as the 
harvest. He is to come again for that end. He is 
to come when the harvest is complete : ripe and ready 
to be gathered. Then the relation in which he stands 
to his people, and they to him, will be gloriously un- 
folded, developed, and acted out. Now, he is risen 
for them. Then they rise in him. They rise be- 
cause he has risen. They rise as he has risen. They 
rise to be as he is, and where he is, now that he has 
risen. They rise, as " his body, the fullness of him 
that filleth all in all." For his resurrection is not 
complete until they rise in him. It is his body that 
is still lying in the tomb, wherever his buried saints 
are laid. It is his body that lies unburied on the 
plain, and in the deep, wherever the bones of his 
unburied saints are scattered. And even that body 
of his is not to see corruption. His natural body 
literally saw no corruption, being actually raised and 
restored to life before corruption had time to begin 
its horrid work. That was when he became the 
first-fruits. And is not that the sure pledge that his 
mystical body too is not to see corruption ? These 
saints of his fall asleep in him. Theirs, as to their 
material frames, is a cold and dank and dreary bed. 
The grave is their house. They have made their 
bed in the darkness. They say to corruption : Thou 
art my father ; to the worm : Thou art my mother 



CHRIST'S MYSTICAL BODY INCORRUPTIBLE. 85 

and my sister. The worm feeds sweetly on them. 
Surely they see corruption. Yes. Their bodies all 
rot away. Not one of them has in itself any ele- 
ment of life — any principle of vitality that can defy 
corruption. And yet there is that in every one of 
them, — yes, even in what of every one of them earth 
or sea has got, — there is that which neither earth nor 
sea can hopelessly corrupt. And at his coming, 
when earth and sea give up their dead, the Lord ta- 
king his risen saints to be for ever with him, their 
resurrection being the completion of his own, pre- 
sents himself and them before the throne of his 
Father's glory, acknowledging then, with reference 
to his mystical body, the church, as he acknowledges 
now, with reference to the body of his own human 
nature, the Father's faithfulness in which he trusted, 
when he said, "Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One 
to see corruption." 

Thus, these three principles; — representation, 
union, subordination ; — are the cement and seal of 
that connection between Christ and you, on which 
the connection between Christ's resurrection and- 
yours depends. While you live, believing on him — 
when you die, falling asleep in him — you are repre- 
sented by Christ ; you are united to Christ ; you are 
subordinate under Christ. Christ for you ; you in 
Christ ; Christ before you ; — such is the " threefold 
cord" which " cannot be quickly broken," binding 
Christ and you together. 

Is it not in every view of it a blessed connection ? 
Is not this a better and brighter prospect than you 
8 



86 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

could have, — believing in Christ, and falling asleep 
in Christ, — if there were no resurrection of the dead, 
and Christ were not risen ? 

The resurrection, thus viewed, is not a mere mode 
of the future life. The question about the resurrec- 
tion is not a question affecting merely the manner of 
your existence after death, and nothing more. If it 
were, you could afford, perhaps, to make a present of 
it to the schools of your philosophers. 

It might be a question of that nature. It might 
be a question about some spiritual or physical theory 
of another life ; such as this — How are men general- 
ly — or, — How are believers in Christ, — to be fash- 
ioned and constituted in the world to come ? Are 
they to be mere and pure spirits ? Or are they to be 
clothed with some sort of filmy and shadowy cor- 
poreity, such as may continue to cleave to them, 
when, leaving their grosser clay for us to bury, they 
pass from our sight at death ? Or are they, at some 
date or crisis beyond that, to receive back again out 
of their graves material frames, bearing as real a 
relation of identity to the bodies now lying there, as 
the wheat rising out of the ground bears to the seed 
from which it springs? 

Questions like these might be left for debate to 
subtle speculators and inquirers. They are questions 
which do not, to any great extent, touch the hope of 
future happiness which the righteous man has. He 
would probably feel that his happiness might be quite 
compatible with any one of these suppositions. He 
would be disposed to decline too minute an inquiry 
into the subject, as savoring of that " dotiug about 






THE RESURRECTION ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION. 87 

questions and strifes of words," which Paul con- 
demns. I am content, he might say, to receive, as 
the pardoned thief on the cross received, the Saviour's 
full and comprehensive assurance, " To-day shalt thou 
be with me in Paradise." I ask for no explanation 
of the different or successive modes of happy being 
which that wide promise may contain. 

The truth is, however, that it is not as bearing 
upon any such questions as these, that the apostle 
here treats of the resurrection of Christ. He views 
it in its connection with a far more vital question — 
What hope have they who are in Christ of being 
saved now, and saved for ever ? They are represent- 
ed by him ; they are one with him ; they are in an 
order of close association and sequence under him, 
and as it were behind him. "What he is, that they 
are. As he is, so are they. To them, his resurrec- 
tion is not a mere historical event, in any question 
about which they may consent to be neutral or in 
doubt. It is their all in all. 

Well, therefore, may they sing with joy, Christ 
our Lord is risen ! He is risen, and is become " the 
author of eternal life to all of us who obey him." 
He is risen, and is become the first-fruits of them that 
have fallen asleep in him. They and we are safe in 
him now. We are not now in our sins. They are 
not perished. At his coming, the glorious harvest 
of which he is the first-fruits will be reaped. "For 
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a 
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the 



88 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first : then we, which are alive and remain, shall be 
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet 
the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the 
Lord." (IThess. iv. 16, 17.) 



■ DISCOUESE VI. 

Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to 
God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all 
authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies 
under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For 
he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are 
put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all 
things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, 
then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things 
under him, that God may be all in all. — 1 Corinthians XV. 24-28. 

TiN" these verses an important question is virtually 
-*- raised. It is the question between a simultaneous 
resurrection of all the Lord's believing people, collec- 
tively, at the close of this dispensation, and succes- 
sive resurrections of them individually, and one by 
one, during its currency and continuance. If the 
Lord and his believing people are so intimately one, 
that his resurrection involves theirs, and their resur- 
rection must be of the same nature with his, — how 
comes it that they are not raised, as he was, before 
they see corruption? Why do their bodies lie in 
their graves so much longer than his? Why does 
not every believer separately, as he falls asleep in 
Jesus, resume, as Jesus did, his corporeal frame, on 
the third day after it has been consigned to the 
tomb? 

To such inquiries, the answer is partly given in 
the twenty-third verse, "But every man in his own 

8* 



90 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

order : Christ the first-fruits ; afterwards they that are 
Christ's at his coming." There must be order and 
due subordination. The consecrated first-fruits must 
take precedence of the harvest of which it is the 
pledge. It is fitting that, in some marked way, 
Christ should be seen to occupy a position apart. 
He receives his natural body, raised from the dead, 
ere he leaves the world and goes to the Father. He 
is to receive his mystical body, raised from the dead, 
"at his coming." 

But the principal answer is to be found in the view 
which the apostle gives of the great transactions that 
are to signalize the Lord's coming. 

"Then cometh the end;" the catastrophe of the 
world's drama; the winding up of its history; the 
close and consummation of the economy of proba- 
tion. It is to be a crisis or era; an occasion on 
which an august ceremonial is to be presented 
before the eyes of all intelligences. And in imme- 
diate connection with what is then to be done, the 
resurrection of the Lord's people has its fitting place. 

That this may be clearly seen, let us try to realize 
what is briefly sketched as a sort of programme of 
the procedure which is to be observed. It is a pro- 
cedure in which Christ is conspicuously the promi- 
nent party. 

I. There is a remarkable and significant transac- 
tion between the Son and the everlasting Father: — 
" Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered 
up the kingdom to God, even the Father." What 
is this transaction ? What is the kingdom ? What 
is meant by its being delivered up ? 



DOES CHRIST CEASE TO REIGN ? 91 

Plainly, the kingdom here means, not the realms 
or territories over which kingly authority is exer- 
cised, hut the kingly authority itself. It is not cer- 
tain dominions that Christ delivers up, but the right 
of dominion. And the right of dominion, or kingly 
authority, then to be delivered up, is evidently that 
which Christ wields, as having "all things put under 
his feet." It is that by which "he puts down all 
rule, and all authority and power." It is his media- 
torial sovereignty ; his prerogative of supremacy and 
empire, as Messiah the Prince. 

But how does he deliver that up "to God, even the 
Father?" "What does that imply? Does he so deliver 
it up that it passes from him, and he ceases to reign ? 
Is it an entire surrender of authority, — a resignation 
of the kingly office, an abdication of the royal throne? 

It can scarcely, it cannot well be that, most of you 
will be ready to reply. Is it not repeatedly intimated 
in Scripture, that Messiah is to reign for ever? — that 
" of the increase of his government and peace there 
shall be no end?" — that "his throne is to endure as 
the days of heaven?" Nor can such intimations be 
easily explained away. They surely mean more 
than that, unlike the authority of other kings, who 
die and give place to successors, Christ's authority, 
vested in himself personally, is not thus transferable, 
but is to last out the whole time of the dynasty 
or dispensation to which it belongs. "We shall 
reign with him;" "we shall sit with him on his 
throne;" — such promises surely point to the future 
and endless life. And, indeed, even apart from the 
express declarations of Scripture, there is something 
against which the spiritual instinct revolts, in the 



02 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

idea of that relation of loving loyalty, in which his 
believing subjects stand to him as their King, ceas- 
ing and being dissolved ; at the very time, too, when, 
by their actual bodily participation with him in his 
resurrection, their union to him is to be most illus- 
triously manifested and sealed. It surely is not an 
abdication that is meant. 

But if it be not that, what is it? "What is it that 
Christ's "delivering up the kingdom to God, even 
the Father," implies? 

It is admitted that he reigns as Mediator by a 
delegated authority. His mediatorial sovereignty is 
distinct from that which he shares, as the Son, with 
the Father and the Holy Ghost, in the essential unity 
of the Godhead, from everlasting. His mediatorial 
sovereignty is not from everlasting. It has a begin- 
ning in time. It does not, on that account, follow 
that it is to have an end in time. Though not from 
everlasting, it may be to everlasting. And the con- 
stitution of Christ's person, in respect of which he is 
Mediator, and as Mediator, king; his being God" as 
well as man; and, therefore, as God-man, in his 
person and in his offices, unchangeable; together 
with the fellowship with himself, into which he 
admits his people ; — all this would seem to intimate 
that his reign, as king, over them is to be for ever. 

But except in so far as it is a reign over them — as 
to all but them — this delegated mediatorial sover- 
eignty of Christ may have an end. It may be 
merged in the original and eternal sovereignty 
which he has, simply as God the Son, with the 
Father and with the Holy Ghost, from everlasting 
to everlasting. 



CHRIST'S REIGN OVER HIS PEOPLE. 93 

Let it be observed, that as Mediator, be in an im- 
portant sense abdicates tbat original and eternal 
sovereignty, at the first beginning of bis mediator- 
ship. In that respect, he does not eagerly retain or 
grasp his equality with God. Made of a woman, 
made under the law, he becomes, instead of a sover- 
eign or king, a servant and subject. And in that 
new character, he consents to receive, as the reward 
of his obedience unto death, a new kingdom. He 
is invested with a new and distinct right of sover- 
eignty. He reigns by a new title ; under a new and 
special commission from him whom, as a servant 
and subject, as well as a Son, he was wont to adore; 
— "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth." 

That commission, in the first instance, confers on 
him a right to reign over the people "given to him 
by the Father." In virtue of it, he "rides prosper- 
ously in his majesty;" with "grace poured into his 
lips," and "his sword girt on his thigh." His sharp 
arrows of conviction " pierce the hearts of those who 
have been the King's enemies." His quick and pow- 
erful word, carried home by his quickening and all- 
powerful Spirit, " subdues the people under him." 
There is " a willing people " — his people are willing 
— " in the day of his power." They " kiss the Son." 
They own him as their Saviour, and become obedient 
to him as their King. His reign over them as Medi- 
ator — as having in that character redeemed them, 
bought them, subdued them, won them — is estab- 
lished as a reign that is to know no interruption and 
no end. His throne is "for ever and ever." (Ps. 
xlv. 6.) 



94 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

But at present, and as tilings now are, the commis- 
sion which Christ has, as Mediator, to reign thus 
over the people given to him by the Father, would 
be frustrated and made void, if it did not embrace 
also a far wider right — a right and power to reign 
over all this world, and all " the rulers of the dark- 
ness of this world." He cannot, as mediatorial Lord, 
and redeeming King, bring many sons and daughters 
to glory, unless his lordship as Mediator, his kingly 
prerogative as Redeemer, extends over the entire 
territory through which he has to lead them, and 
comprehends all the powers, of whatever kind, by 
which their progress may be either hindered or ad- 
vanced. 

But now, let all the sons and daughters be brought 
safely to glory. Let the redemption of the people 
given to him by the Father be complete. Let even 
the last badge and token of their subjection to vanity 
on account of sin, the mouldering of their mortal 
bodies in the tomb, come to an end. 

It is plain that now, in these new circumstances, 
the reason for the present widely-extended sweep of 
the mediatorial sovereignty ceases. Having all his 
people with himself; having his body whole and 
entire ; there being no longer, any more, any evil 
power or principle outstanding that can touch them ; 
there being now no possibility of their being assailed 
or injured from without; Christ, their King, nee'd 
not now, in the character in which he is their King, 
claim or retain any kingship outside of them. His 
sovereignty over them, the sovereignty which he has 
bought so dearly, — buying them to be his subjects 



Christ's reign over all things for his people. 95 

with his own precious blood, — he will not, and can- 
not, relinquish. They themselves could ill brook 
the idea of his relinquishing it. But it would seem 
that for the exercise of that sovereignty, in his capa- 
city of their redeeming King, over others besides 
them, on their behalf, there is really no occasion now, 
and no room. It may be fitly merged, therefore, in 
the general sovereignty which the Godhead has over 
all things. 

Behold, then, Christ the Son delivering up the 
kingdom to God, even the Father. 

First, contemplate him coming forth from the Fa- 
ther. A province in the great universal empire of 
God has apostatized. Its inhabitants have thrown 
off their allegiance, and are in open rebellion. A 
usurping prince, with his legions, has got possession 
of the soil, and has won the hearts of those who oc- 
cupy it. Suddenly, though after long warning, the 
Son, the heir of the rightful monarch, makes his 
appearance. He comes on a strange errand. He 
comes to expiate the crime of their rebellion, on be- 
half of all who will adhere to him, by the substitu- 
tion of himself in their stead, and his bearing for 
them its deserved and inevitable doom. He comes 
as his Father's delegate and viceroy, invested with 
full power and absolute authority over the whole 
province, and all within it. The universal power 
and authority thus conveyed to him he is commis- 
sioned to use, on the one hand, for attaching all who 
are to be his adherents to himself, and on the other 
hand, for the overthrow of every hostile force. The 
war is long ; the struggle is severe ; but at last it is 



96 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

over. The Captain of Salvation has gathered around 
him the entire number of the people that are to be 
saved. His delegated sovereignty he has been wield- 
ing on their behalf. He has wielded it effectually. 
He needs to wield it no more. In their name as 
well as in his own, — as representing them, being one 
with them, and having them one with himself, — be- 
ing still their Head, and Lord, and redeeming King, 
— he delivers up the kingly power which in that 
character he has been exercising over a province 
once rebellious, but now subdued. " He delivers up 
the kingdom to God, even the Father." 

H. This view of the transaction in question be- 
tween Christ and the Father, is confirmed by a con- 
sideration of the victorious position which he is rep- 
resented as occupying when it takes place; — "He 
shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and 
power." He has completed the work for which he 
received the kingdom. He has executed the com- 
mission with which he was charged, when, as Medi- 
ator, as Messiah the prince, representing his people, 
identifying them with himself, and acting for them, 
he was invested with wide and universal sovereignty. 
Then, he had "power given to him over all flesh, 
that he might give eternal life to as many as the Fa- 
ther had given him." He was " set far above all 
principality, and power, and might, and dominion," 
and made " head over all things to the church, which 
is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." 
Such is his inauguration into his kingdom of uni- 
versal authority and power. He receives this au- 



CHRIST SUBDUING ALL THINGS UNDER HIM. 97 

thority and power, as "the man Christ Jesus," for a 
special purpose. That purpose is the subjugation of 
all authority and power on the earth, whether human 
or satanic, that is hostile to the Father's government 
and the Father's glory. He commands in an enemy's 
country. Armed with full kingly sovereignty, he 
wages war in a territory which has submitted to an 
usurper. Rallying round him, as the strife goes on, 
from age to age, from among the very rebels with 
whom the war is waged, successive bands of faithful 
followers, whom he buys for himself with his blood, 
and wins for himself by his Spirit, — leading them, 
shielding them, saving them — he makes head against 
his enemies and theirs ; — against the enemies of the 
Father's throne, the throne of his Father, and their 
Father, his God and their God. 

For years and long centuries, it seems a doubtful 
contest. Evil influences, evil principles, evil powers, 
evil men, evil spirits, are apparently as strong and 
dominant as at the first. Ignorance, misery, crime, 
lust, oppression, tyranny, bloodshed — the dark troop 
of obscene harpies that track the malign steps 
of the reign of this world's god — brood as omin- 
ously as ever over the nations and families of man- 
kind. The Church, the Lord's struggling host, 
scarcely keeps her precarious and ambiguous ground. 
The enemies of God and of godliness are still con- 
fident and bold. 

One might almost conclude that the best thing 

the King and Captain of the Lord's host can do", is 

to carry his loyal subjects hence, from this doomed 

globe, to some better and brighter sphere, and 

9 



98 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

leave the field here for the Adversary to work his 
will in. 

Yes ! I may be sometimes tempted to exclaim : 
Let it just come to this. Let the fortress be sur- 
rendered. Let the debatable land be evacuated. 
Let the besieged garrison, the beleagured army, 
march off, under their leader, not conquered indeed, 
but not caring to prolong the weary and intermin- 
able strife. 

What though this earth be abandoned to the Devil 
and his angels, to the prince of this world and his 
slaves ? — Away among those orbs of quenchless light 
that set the starry firmament in a blaze, may not 
some purer and more beauteous planet be found, 
where Christ may gather round him, as one by one 
they fall, the little ones whom the Father giveth 
him, when they have fought the good fight, and 
finished their course, and kept the faith, and won 
the crown of righteousness ? 

So let it be. Let them depart to be with Christ. 
And when they have all departed, when the last of 
them is gone, let this earth, which has been the 
scene of their trial and training for a better, be left 
forsaken of " the Lord and his Christ," a worthless 
prey to the adversaries who have so long been say- 
ing, "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast 
their cords from us." 

But what ! Leave this earth at last in the hands 
of enemies ; this earth which holds the dust of his 
redeemed ! Abandon and give over to hostile 
powers the place of his people's graves ! — the graves 
in which those bodies lie, that, belonging to the 



ALL ENEMIES UNDER CHRIST'S FEET. 99 

children who are one with himself, mnst as certainly 
be raised as his own was raised ! Nay, if it were 
for nothing else than the raising of these bodies, 
this earth, which is their burial-place, must be res- 
cued from the usurper, and recovered victoriously 
and gloriously for its rightful owner. 

And most fitting it is that the raising of these 
bodies should be the crowning act of the glorious 
victory. 

Even so it is. "For he must reign, till he hath 
put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that 
shall be destroyed is death." He returns to this 
earth, once the scene of his agony, now to be the 
scene of his triumph. Then he was crucified in 
weakness ; it was the hour and the power of dark- 
ness ; he seemed to fall before his enemies ; it was 
for them to raise the shout of exultation. Now he 
has put them all under his feet ; he has overthrown 
every power, and overturned every government, 
that exalted itself against him. All who have been 
working evil on the earth, counterworking his good, 
are now impotent, and at his disposal. Their ma- 
chinations and menaces alike are at an end. The 
earth is rid of them. 

And instead, Lo ! Christ is come in the clouds. 
He is come to consummate his success ; to follow 
it up with judgment; to avenge his slaughtered 
saints ; to take vengeance on the oppressors. He is 
come bringing with him the mighty multitude of 
saved souls that have been with him in paradise. 

What time more suitable than that, what occasion 
more opportune, for the resurrection of those bodies 

LOFC. 



100 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

which, when they departed to be with him, they 
left behind them here ? All other enemies are under 
his feet ; all the other enemies that were wont to 
tempt and try, — to vex and harass them. They are 
safe and free now, for ever, even if they are to dwell 
here on earth, from all the adversaries of whatever 
sort, spiritual or carnal, that used to torment them 
when they dwelt on earth before. But they are not 
yet wholly free from death. 

True ; even before they fell asleep in Jesus, they 
were, to a large extent, most mercifully set free from 
death's power. They had ceased to be, through 
fear of death, all their lifetime subject to bondage. 
And when they came actually to die, there was no 
sting in their death, no curse, no sense of condem- 
nation, no fear of wrath. Still, death got hold of 
them in part, and has kept hold of them ever since. 

But now Christ comes, and they come with him. 
And all their other enemies whom they had to 
meet when they were here before being under the 
feet of Christ their Lord, this last enemy, too, is to 
be destroyed. "Whatever grasp he has had of them, 
even in the corporeal part of their nature, the grim 
king of terrors must let go. They rise. While the 
wicked rise to the resurrection of damnation, and 
are cast out (Mat. xxv. 41,) they rise to the resur- 
rection of life, and remain. They are then sharers 
in the full blessedness of the resurrection of their 
Lord. And thenceforth there is no more, on all 
the earth's surface, a grave ; there is no more, in 
all the earth's history, a death ! 

What a scene here bursts and breaks on the 



PARADISE RESTORED. 101 

enraptured view of faith ! What a crisis ! Christ, 
the man Christ Jesus, standing again on this earth 
in the body; all Ms redeemed with him in the body ; 
not a breath, not a whisper, of opposition or rebel- 
lion anywhere to be heard, throughout all its con- 
tinents and kingdoms ; not a tomb anywhere ; not 
a dying groan; not a trace of sin's or of sorrow's 
ravages ; not the faintest vestige of the footsteps of 
the Arch-fiend who first brought sin and sorrow to 
its shores ! Yes ! His work is done ! The end 
for which he got the kingdom is fully and for ever 
attained. He may deliver it up to God, even the 
Father. 

And shall we dare to penetrate a little farther 
into futurity, and look beyond that scene? What 
do we see? A renovated earth, with renovated 
heavens, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And 
who possess and own it? Saints changed or risen, 
with one like unto the Son of Man going in and 
out among them; not for a thousand years, ending 
with another fearful apostacy and fall, but for end- 
less ages. Christ and his redeemed occupy that 
earth for ever. In some sense, and to some extent, 
they are wielding kingly power in it, and exer- 
cising kingly power over it; but only in the sense 
in which originally man was commanded to sub- 
due the earth ; and with no claim, and indeed no 
ambition, of any sovereignty beyond that. The 
dominion which, as redeeming man, and for re- 
deemed men, Christ had over all, is no more 
needed. His special and temporary mediatorial 
government, as Messiah the Prince, is merged in 

9* 



102 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the eternal and universal government of the God- 
head. As the Eternal Son, he has that government 
still upon his shoulders. But as Christ, his peo- 
ple's Lord and King, as the man Christ Jesus, 
sharing with them the occupancy of Paradise 
restored, he is in the position in which the first 
Adam, if he had not fallen, would have been with 
his children in the Paradise that was lost. He con- 
tinues to reign over the seed given to him, and 
purchased by him. He is ever presenting them as 
the subjects whom he has brought back from rebel- 
lion to be, in him, now loyal subjects under the 
ordinary moral administration of God. As his, in 
that new earth which he has won for them, they 
own allegiance to the sovereign authority by which 
all the universe is governed. On earth as else- 
where, " God is all in all." 



DISCOURSE VII. 

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise 
not at all ? why are they then baptized for the dead ? And why stand 
we in jeopardy every hour ? I protest by your rejoicing which I have in 
Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I have 
fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me. if the dead rise 
not? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die. — 1 Corinthians xv. 
29-32. 

f I iHIS is on all hands confessed to be a passage 

-*- of extremely difficult interpretation, both, first, 

in its details, and, secondly, in its general meaning 

and connection as a part of the apostle's argument. 

Part First. 

Into the difficulties of detail, it would be unsuit- 
able, according to the plan of the present work, to 
enter particularly. But it may be proper briefly to 
notice them in their order. 

The first and chief puzzle is in the twenty-ninth 
verse: "Else what shall they do which are baptized 
for the dead, if the dead rise not at all ? why are 
they then baptized for the dead?" What is meant 
by being baptized for the dead? 

The idea naturally suggested by the original 
phrase is that of a vicarious baptism ; the baptism 
of one person in the place, or room, or stead of 
another. 



104 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

It is known to have been at one time a practice 
in the church, if a convert to Christianity happened 
to die unbaptized, that a Christian brother might 
volunteer to be his substitute and representative, 
and to have- the baptismal rite administered to him, 
on behalf of his deceased friend. This was held to 
make up for the loss which the dead man might 
sustain in consequence of his not having been him- 
self baptized, while yet alive. It was held to be 
equivalent to his having been in his own person 
made partaker of the initiatory sacrament of the 
church. It was a posthumous baptism by proxy. 

Some interpreters of high name, including one 
of the most recent and most eminent, have been 
inclined to understand Paul as alluding to that 
practice ; and they have admired his allusion to it 
as an instance of the tenderness with which he 
dealt with a usage, to say the least of it, of dan- 
gerous tendency, as well as of the skill with which 
he turned it to argumentative or oratorical account 
in pleading with those among whom it may have 
partially prevailed. Out of your own mouth I 
argue with you. There are some of you who have 
received baptism as personating and, to use a fami- 
liar phrase, standing in the shoes of the dead. For 
what good end did you do so, even on your own 
theory of what such a procedure might mean and 
might effect, if the dead rise not and survive not 
at all ? 

There are grave and obvious objections to this 
view. It shocks one's sense of propriety. It seems 
unlike the apostle's usual manliness and genuine 



BAPTIZED FOR THE DEAD. 105 

truthfulness, that he should deal thus with so fond 
and frivolous, not to say foul and fatal a supersti- 
tion; employing it merely to point a rhetorical 
appeal, without one word of warning or denuncia- 
tion against.it. Besides, there is not a trace of the 
usage in question, till many years after apostolic 
times, and then only within a very narrow section 
of the church, suspected with good reason, on other 
grounds, of unsoundness in the faith. And it is 
far more probable, that in a subsequent age of de- 
clining spirituality and increasing corruption, the 
practice originated among a few heretics, misinter- 
preting perhaps the apostle's language, than either 
that it existed at all in Paul's day, or that if it 
did, he could treat it so lightly. " The practice 
was never adopted except by some obscure sects of 
gnostics, who seem to have founded their custom 
on this very passage."* The text, misconstrued, 
may have suggested the usage, not the usage the 
text. 

Of the other meanings that have been put upon 
the phrase, none are entirely satisfactory and unob- 
jectionable. That which, perhaps, most commends 
itself, — at least to the fancy and the heart, — is the 
one which, retaining still the general idea of sub- 
stitution, gives it a different turn, making it not a 
vicarious representation of the persons of the dead, 
but, as it were, a vicarious occupancy of the posi- 
tion which till death they filled. 

The vacancies left in the ranks of the Christian 

* Oonybeare and Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, vol. ii. p. 
59. Ed. 1853. 



106 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

army, when saints and martyrs fall asleep in Jesus, 
are supplied by fresh recruits, eager to be baptized 
as they were, and pledged by baptism to fall as they 
fell, at the post of duty and danger. It is a touching 
sight which the Lord's baptized host presents to 
view, especially in troublous times. Column after 
column advancing to the breach, as on a forlorn 
hope, in the storming of Satan's citadel of worldly 
pomp and power, is mowed down by the ruthless 
fire of persecution. But ever as one line disappears, 
a new band of volunteers starts up, candidates for 
the seal of baptism, even though in their case, as in 
the case of their predecessors in the deadly strife, 
the seal of baptism is to be the earnest of the bloody 
crown of martyrdom. It would seem surely to be 
somewhere in the line of this thought that the key 
to the perplexing phrase, "baptized for the dead," 
is to be found. It implies that somehow baptism 
formed a link of connection between the baptized 
living and the baptized dead — committing the living 
to the fortune or fate, whatever it may be, that has 
already overtaken the dead. Your baptism consti- 
tutes you the substitutes and successors on earth of 
the holy men and women who have gone before you. 
It binds you to do their work in life ; and to share 
their destiny in death. But what destiny is that, if 
the dead rise not all? What means, in that case, 
your being baptized for the dead? 

The second difficulty, less formidable than the 
first, is in the two following verses — "And why 
stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by 
your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our 



I DIE DAILY. 107 

Lord, I die daily." The apostle points to the dan- 
gers which always and everywhere beset believers, 
as thus baptized for the dead; and most emphati- 
cally describes his own condition as being one not 
merely of continual exposure to death, but of the 
continual endurance of death. It is singularly 
strong language that he uses. It is one of the 
instances in which personal feeling seems to rise 
within him with a certain uncontrollable and even 
indignant vehemence. He cannot contain himself. 
"I protest," he cries. And mark the ground of his 
protestation. a By your rejoicing which I have in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." " Your rejoicing which I 
have." The phrase is a strange one. It is substan- 
tially this: — The joy which I have in you; the joy 
which I have in your joy, in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
Your rejoicing in our common Lord is my joy. But 
I bear record, I protest, it is a joy dearly bought. It 
is bought at the cost of an experience on my part 
literally equivalent to a daily death. "I die daily." 
And is it you who are my joy and crown; you 
whose rejoicing is my joy in Christ Jesus our Lord; 
you, to share whose joy in our common Saviour I 
am content to die daily ; is it you who would cast 
away yourselves, and would have me cast away, that 
hope of the resurrection which alone can make our 
joy, yours and mine, reasonable — which alone can 
make my daily death endurable? "Where, if the 
dead rise not, is that rejoicing of yours which I have, 
which is my joy, in our Lord Jesus Christ? Where- 
fore, if the dead rise not, should I, for so vain a 
dream of bliss, be doomed to die daily? 



108 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

There is yet a third difficulty in the remaining 
verse — "If after the manner of men I have fought 
with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if 
the dead rise not?" I die daily, says the apostle; 
and that not in a figure merely. Here, where I am 
now writing this epistle, I have just escaped from a 
conflict which, humanly speaking, or to use an or- 
dinary mode of speech among men, is tantamount 
to one of the cruellest deaths with which you, as 
frequenters of the ordinary public spectacles in Gre- 
cian cities, must once have been familiar. To what 
exposure of himself the apostle here alludes — as 
well as in 2 Cor. i. 8 — is not clear. We know (Acts 
xix.) that once, during his three years' residence in 
Ephesus, he was in danger of being torn to pieces 
or stoned by a tumultuary assembly, roused against 
him by the fanaticism of the worshippers of Diana, 
who had been stimulated by the self-interest of the 
craftsmen, and inflamed by the rancor of the Jews. 
He may have had similar hairbreadth escapes more 
than once. Doubtless the Corinthians understood to 
what peril the apostle here referred. 

And they could feel — from their own personal 
knowledge of all his circumstantial allusions to mat- 
ters of fact, of which some are now unknown to us, 
they could feel — how deeply Paul was moved when 
he wrote these words. They could feel, as in our 
ignorance of minute details we cannot feel, the force 
of this most affecting and pathetic appeal. 

I. There are many among us, they seem to hear 
their once-loved pastor exclaiming, who, in being 
baptized, have nothing but death before us. We 



WHY NOT CRY "PECCAVI?" 109 

had everything to lose, as regards this present life, 
and absolutely nothing to gain, when we were bap- 
tized. So far as this world is concerned, our bap- 
tism was virtually our death. We embraced the 
gospel, we attached ourselves to Christianity, know- 
ing that those who had gone before us had lost all, 
even their very lives, in the cause. I myself held 
the clothes of Stephen when, amid a shower of 
stones, seeing, as he said he saw, the heavenly glory, 
he fell asleep. I was baptized for the dead, when, 
but a few days after, I was by baptism enlisted to 
occupy his vacant post. My baptism came in place 
of his death. What if the vision of a risen Saviour 
was a delusion to the martyr Stephen, as it must 
have been if the dead rise not ? Then the appear- 
ance of a risen Saviour to me, as I was on my way 
to Damascus, was a delusion also. And it was on 
the faith of that appearance that I was baptized, I 
may say, in Stephen's room. Well may I ask, What 
shall they do which are baptized for the dead ? 

II. And why do t, and those similarly situated 
with me, hold on in a course implying uninterrupt- 
ed liability to destruction ? Our being baptized for 
the dead is bad enough. It is a sufficiently serious 
calamity, that in our baptism we rashly served our- 
selves heirs to such men as Stephen, and committed 
ourselves to a like fate with theirs. Why should we 
not own an error, and cry peccavi now, and so have 
done with it ? Why should we not back out of the 
concern ? Why not acknowledge that it was under 
a mistake that we thus identified ourselves with the 
martyrs, and cast in our lot with them ; that we were 
10 



110 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

misled when we consented to be baptized for the 
dead? "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? 

III. For my part, I can assure you, it is so with 
me. You know how I rejoice over you, and in you, 
and with you. You have not forgotten how you 
and I rejoiced together in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
It was, and is, a great joy — a great mutual joy — to 
be together rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and having no 
confidence in the flesh ; to be rejoicing in and with one 
another, in Christ Jesus our Lord. But I protest to 
you, that if it costs you little sacrifice, it costs me 
much. I die daily. I enter daily into the death of 
Christ. It is only through my entering daily into 
the bitterness of his death that I enter, for myself 
and you — for myself with you — into the joy of his 
resurrection. Will you rob me of that joy* yours 
and mine — my joy in you, my joy with you — by per- 
suading me that there is no resurrection ? 

IV. And if your rejoicing which I have in Christ 
Jesus our Lord, and which reconciles me cordially 
to my dying daily, — if that does not move you, what 
do you say to my actual, outward estate here at 
Ephesus, whence I am now writing to you ? Speak- 
ing to you as men are wont to speak to one another 
of their trials, I tell you frankly that here, in Ephe- 
sus, it has seemed to me as if it were rather with 
wild beasts than with human beings that I had to 
contend. If I have not literally been cast as a prey, 
on the red and slippery stage, to savage monsters ; 
or forced to wrestle naked and unarmed with fierce 
lions, for the amusement of a blood-thirsty populace ; 
have I not really had to bear the brunt of an en- 



WHY NOT TURN EPICUREANS ? Ill 

counter quite as painful and as perilous, in braving 
the hostile passions of exasperated men ? 

And to what purpose is all this ? "Why should we 
pledge ourselves in baptism to a partnership with 
the fallen martyrs ? Why should we continue in 
that partnership, incurring danger every hour? 
"Why should we, for a visionary and ideal joy, how- 
ever brotherly that joy may appear, and however di- 
vine, go through a daily experience of dying ; en- 
tering into the death of Christ, and being crucified 
with him ? And why should we face the enmity 
and wrath of a world that rages furiously, like a wild 
beast, against all that condemn its principles and 
practice ? Why thus, in baptism, take the place of 
dead saints? — why continue, in spite of hourly 
jeopardy, to occupy their place? — why seek to re- 
tain and cultivate the joyous fellowship of believers 
at the expense of dying daily? — why provoke the 
resentment of wild beasts at Ephesus ? — if, after all, 
there is no resurrection of the dead ? Why not rather 
act on the Epicurean and worldly maxim — " Let us 
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?" 

Part Second. 

So much for the difficulties of detail in this pass- 
age, and the import of its several parts. It will be 
proper now to consider the general meaning and 
connection of the whole, as a part of the apostle's 
argument. 

For a question naturally occurs — How does this 
dismal and dreary maxim of infidelity, or scepticism, 



112 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

present itself as the inevitable consequence resulting 
from a denial of the bodily resurrection ? May there 
not be a doctrine of immortality independent of that 
article of faith ? If the pious dead continue to live ; 
if the souls of believers at death are made perfect 
in holiness and pass immediately into glory ; is not 
that enough for them and for us, even though their 
mortal frames, and ours when we follow them, 
should never be resuscitated or quickened again? 
Surely I may consent to be baptized for the dead, 
and to cast in my lot with them, if they survive at 
all in blessedness. My doing so may imply that I 
stand in jeopardy every hour. It may imply that 
for the fellowship of joy which I have with living 
Christians I die daily, being crucified with Christ. 
In meeting the enemies of my peace, the principal- 
ities and powers with which I have to wrestle in the 
heavenly places, I may have to do what is tanta- 
mount to fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus. The 
dead, into partnership with whom, as one of their 
substitutes and successors, I am baptized, have had 
all that to endure ; and I, as baptized for the dead, 
may lay my account with having to endure it too. 
That, undoubtedly, is a hard case, if they have ut- 
terly perished ; for I cannot hope to come better off 
at the last than they. But, one might say, the ques- 
tion, as I understand it, is about the material part 
of their • complex being exclusively. It is at the 
worst only what is physical about them that is to be 
irretrievably lost. What is spiritual and immaterial 
is indestructible and immortal. And if, when they 
die, they depart to be with Jesus — to be absent from 



THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 113 

the body and present with the Lord — then, even 
although that absence from the body should be per- 
petuated and prolonged for ever, it was worth while 
for them to live as they did, — it was worth while for 
them to die as they did. And it is worth while for 
me, it is gain to me and no loss, to be baptized for 
the dead. 

So I am apt to feel and to reason ; — being familiar 
with the notion of the soul's life of beatitude while 
the body lies mouldering in the grave, and of that 
life of the soul continuing, even though the body 
should never quit the grave and be revived again. 

And so perhaps some of these Corinthian specula- 
tors might argue. You do us injustice when you 
assume that because we cannot see our way intelli- 
gently to admit the theory of a future literal and 
bodily resurrection, we therefore, either virtually or 
formally, deny the fact of a future spiritual life. 
"We hold, as you do, that whosoever liveth and be- 
lieveth in Jesus shall never die. We are persuaded 
that our believing friends, who have gone before us 
through the dark valley, are living now, and are en- 
joying a happiness which compensates a thousand- 
fold all that they had to sacrifice and to suffer here 
below. Instead of them, thus dead, we count it all 
joy to be baptized; though this baptism of ours for 
the dead may cost us sacrifices and sufferings as 
grievous as theirs. It is enough if we are to share 
their felicity, as they have it imparted to their spirits 
now. What matters it if neither their bodies nor 
ours are ever to see the light of life again ? 

Evidently this is not the apostle's view. He con- 

10* 



114 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

siders the whole future state of himself and his fel- 
low-believers to be at stake. With Paul it is a ques- 
tion of life or death; — and that in the strictest and 
most formidable sense of that alternative. 

And yet Paul must have been well read in those 
arguments of philosophy — Grecian and Oriental — 
that grappled with the question of immortality. He 
must have had the idea of the soul's separate exist- 
ence in his view. He himself, more than once in 
his writings, asserts that doctrine most articulately. 
He could not, like the Sadducees, confound or iden- 
tify the denial of the resurrection with the denial of 
immortality. He must have been prepared to ad- 
mit that there might be a spiritual immortality with- 
out a bodily or physical resurrection : that men 
might live on, in Christ, and with Christ, as to their 
souls, though their bodies were to perish altogether. 
What he could not admit was the possibility of 
there being life, either of the soul or of the body, — 
real life — saved life — life for the redeemed, either 
out of the body or in the body — apart from the res- 
urrection of Christ. 

For it is here, if one may be allowed the expres- 
sion, that the shoe pinches. It is here that the real 
stress and pressure of the argument lies. 

Take away the doctrine of the resurrection, and 
you take away, as a matter of fact, the resurrection 
of Christ. Take away that, and you take away the 
ground or foundation on which any believer in Christ 
can have life now, or can look for life after death, 
either out of the body or in the body. 

In vain you tell me of an immortality of the soul. 



NO RESURRECTION — NO LIFE. 115 

In vain you bid me apprehend the surviving of the 
whole spiritual part of me, after death has dealt with 
my mortal frame. I care not for such a survivor- 
ship, unless it carries with it safety, life, and glory. 
But how can it, if there is no resurrection ? For if 
there is no resurrection, Christ is not risen. And if 
Christ is not risen, if there is no resurrection, why 
mock me with the delusion of a life separate from 
the body, when, even if such a life were sure to me, 
it must be a living death ? — such a living death as, 
in some terrible sense, that of the man Christ Jesus 
himself must have been, if, dying for our sins, he 
had not been raised again for our justification ! In 
his case, and therefore in ours, the motto is — E"o 
resurrection, no life. 

For it comes to that. If there be no resurrection 
there is no life ; none of that life for which alone, as 
a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I care ; no life 
in and with my risen Saviour, my living Lord and 
Head. 

The resurrection of my body at the last day is not 
that life, although it is the consummation and com- 
pletion of it. The life itself I have now. And I 
shall continue to have it after death, while my body 
lies in the grave. Death is no break, no interrup- 
tion in that life. The resuming of my body is but 
an incident in that life. It is a life whose continuity 
stretches, in one unbroken and unending line, from 
the moment of my believing, and being found in 
Christ, onward throughout eternal ages. It is the 
same life, — identically the same life — throughout. 
It is a resurrection life throughout. It is life de- 



116 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

pending on a resurrection ; it is life flowing from a 
resurrection ; it is life realized in a resurrection. My 
life is my oneness with Christ in his resurrection. 
He is to me the resurrection and the life. He is my 
resurrection and my life. 

Grant me this resurrection life, to hegin now and 
here, while I am in the body; to survive when I am 
absent from the body ; to be perfected for ever when 
I am in the body again. Grant me this life ; a life 
intimately and inseparably, from the first through- 
out, bound up with the belief of the resurrection. 
Then, I am ready for any forlorn hope. I will fill 
the bloody footsteps of any of the fallen brave. I 
will accept a baptism for any martyrdom. All the 
live-long day and night, for all the days and nights of 
my earthly pilgrimage, I will stand in j eopardy. The 
most humbling daily death will I die. The wildest 
beasts of Ephesus will I face. And all this I will do, 
not in gloom, as if all the present were misery, to be 
compensated by some future reward ; but in glad- 
ness, for I have the compensation now. I have it in 
that resurrection life on which I have already enter- 
ed. I have it ; — " I protest, by the joy of my fellow- 
ship with all the saints in our common risen Sa- 
viour," that I have it. By our mutual rejoicing with 
one another in Jesus Christ our Lord, I protest that 
I have the compensation now. 

But if you rob me of this life, if you cut away 
from me the resurrection which is its root and its 
very essence, what sense or meaning is there now, 
or can there ever be, in such services and sacrifices 
as these ? 



RESURRECTION LIFE. 117 

It is not merely that the hope of future recom- 
pense is lost. That is not what is uppermost in my 
thoughts. My present portion in Christ is gone. I 
am as good as dead already; helplessly, hopelessly 
dead. 

Then why prolong the miserable farce of suffer- 
ing for Christ if that is all the issue of it ? Why not 
rather let the whole gospel go, with its deadly cross 
and its shadowy crown? Why not make the best 
of things as they are? "Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die." 

There are several important practical truths in- 
volved in this representation. The first is, that the 
resurrection, for which Paul pleads, is the resurrec- 
tion which virtually includes in it the whole life of 
the believer, in this world, in the intermediate state, 
and throughout eternity. The apostle is not merely 
arguing with reference to an event that is to happen 
at the last day. If that were all, the matter might 
seem of minor consequence. The resuming of our 
bodies may be the signal and the occasion for a 
large accession of glory and blessedness. Still, if it 
were viewed as an isolated incident in our history, 
and, if otherwise, apart from it, our spiritual life in 
God's favor and likeness were secure to us, the 
necessity for making so much of it as Paul does 
might not be very apparent. But it is not so. On 
the contrary, the whole drift of the apostle ? s reason- 
ing is to show that, apart from the resurrection, we 
can have no spiritual life at all, absolutely none, 
either here or hereafter. Whatever spiritual life we 



118 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

have now, we must accept as resurrection life. For 
it is the resurrection life of Christ that we accept. 

Remember how he died for your sins, and in your 
sins; and how it is only in his resurrection that 
he appears as delivered from your sins, himself 
saved from your sins, and so saving you from your 
sins. In his resurrection he stands forth complete ; 
thoroughly and for ever, as to his whole person, rid 
of all the guilt and condemnation of your sins which 
he made his own ; thoroughly and for ever, as to his 
whole person, accepted and justified ; alive, there- 
fore, for evermore. That is his resurrection life. 
And into that life ; into fellowship and participation 
with him in that life ; you enter, when, by working 
faith in you, the Spirit unites you to him. Your 
resurrection life then begins; "Ye are risen with 
Christ." And it goes on unfolding and developing 
itself before your death, and after your death, until 
at last, in the most exact and full sense, as to your 
whole person, body as well as soul, the resurrection 
of Christ becomes yours. Thus it is a resurrection 
life throughout. It is a life wrapt up in a justifying 
resurrection from a penal and expiatory death. 

Hence, to deny resurrection is to cut up by the 
roots this life. It is to fling us back on such life as 
we may have apart from Christ and the resurrec- 
tion, independently of Christ and the resurrection. 

And what life is that? It may be a life with a 
hereafter, a hereafter for the immortal soul, a here- 
after even for the revivified body. But it is a life 
to which sin, guilt, condemnation, corruption, wrath, 
all hopelessly cleave. It is, I repeat, no better than 



THE RESURRECTION LIFE A PRESENT REWARD. 119 

a living death. There is nothing in it to make 
amends for a martyr's baptism of death. There is 
nothing in it fitted to make amends even for the 
self-denial and self-sacrifice which ordinary Chris- 
tian fellowship, and work, and service demand. It 
yon have nothing better than that to gain through 
Christ, you certainly may as well take things easily ; 
making the best of the world as you find it; and 
acting on the pleasing maxim — "Let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die." 

The second lesson to be learned is this : that what 
reconciles believers to present trial, is not the dis- 
tant and prospective vision of a future reward, but 
the present sense of a resurrection life. 

It is a poor thing to conceive of the apostle as 
arguing thus: I would consider it worth while to 
submit to hardships, privations, persecutions, even 
to death itself, were I sure of living hereafter, and 
being recompensed and requited hereafter. A 
generous and noble spirit might reply: There are 
some things worth the suffering for, and worth 
the dying for, even if there were no life or re- 
surrection of any sort in the future world after 
death. Truth is one of these, and righteousness, 
and charity. I would be baptized for the dead; 
I would stand in jeopardy; I would mortify my- 
self and crucify myself daily; I would fight with 
wild beasts, any day and every day; as a confessor 
in the cause of truth, or of righteousness, or of 
charity; without ever asking if I am to survive 
death, and to be paid my wages after death for my 
work and warfare now. I am paid already. I have 



120 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the wages in my own bosom, conscious of right, and 
triumphant over wrong. And when you make your 
Christian bemoan himself, as if he could not be true 
and honorable in his master's service here, unless he 
were sure of getting the resurrection of his body as 
his hire hereafter, you degrade him below the level 
of many a heathen, who darkly struggled on in the 
cause of the true and the good, — hopeless, or all but 
hopeless, of any life beyond the grave. 

But this is not really a fair statement of the case. 
What the apostle urges is, that if you take away the 
resurrection, you not merely take away the future 
reward — you take away the present value and vir- 
tue — of the struggle. There is no sense or meaning 
now in any service I may render, or in any sacrifice 
I may make. The whole is a delusion and a dream. 

But give me, on the other hand, in sure pos- 
session, this resurrection to life, Christ's for me, and 
mine in him. Then not in the remote distance 
before me, but now in my actual realization of it, I 
have a joy in the midst of all my tribulations, — the 
joy of my " life, hid with Christ in God," — for which 
I may well consent to die daily, to be in jeopardy 
every hour, and to fight with all manner of wild 
beasts, in any sort of Ephesus. 



DISCOURSE VIII. 

Be not deceived : evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to 
righteousness, and sin not ; for some have not the knowledge of God : I 
speak this to your shame. — 1 Corinthians xv. 33, 34. 

rflHE error which he is combating is represented 
-*■ by Paul as fatal alike to the morality and the hap- 
piness — to the holiness and the hope of the Christian 
life. If you deny the doctrine of the resurrection, 
you undermine the whole ground on which a be- 
liever in Christ builds his confidence. And you 
make void the motive which reconciles and prompts 
him to a life of self-denial, self-mortification, and 
self-sacrifice. He is a most miserably mistaken 
martyr. He had far better be a regardless infidel 
voluptuary — " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die." 

But how is this ? one is apt to ask. If I hold by 
the belief in immortality — in the continuance of per- 
sonal identity after death, and in a future state of 
rewards and punishments — is not that enough to 
sustain me, amid whatever difficulties, in the right 
way, and to confirm me, amid whatever temptations, 
in resisting evil ; even although I may have doubts 
on the subject of a literal bodily resurrection ? If 
my soul is to survive the dissolution of my body, 
and is to be blessed or cursed according to my con- 
duct here, why should I grudge toil or suffering in 
11 



122 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the good cause? Why should not that hope be 
enough to uphold me ? Why should I have any 
leaning to the heartless philosophy of unbelief, "Let 
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ?" 

Now there are, as it seems to me, substantially 
two reasons why the apostle is so sensitively anxious 
about the maintenance of this doctrine of a bodily 
resurrection, in contradistinction to the mere belief 
of a spiritual immortality. The one reason is more 
special ; the other more general. The one is found- 
ed on the direct and immediate influence which a 
man's views of a future state may be expected to 
exercise over him. The other is founded on a con- 
sideration of the light in which they may lead him 
to regard the entire Christian system. Both of these 
reasons are indicated by Paul in that argument of 
which the appeal contained in these two verses is 
the close — "Be not deceived: evil communications 
corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, 
and sin not ; for some have not the knowledge of 
God : I speak this to your shame." 

I. We sometimes, as has been said, feel a difficulty 
in understanding why Paul should be so very earnest 
in insisting on the resurrection of the body. It 
seems as if he thought that without that element, 
the belief of immortality might not only fail to ex- 
ercise a good influence, but might even exercise an 
evil influence over one who so embraces it. 

The difficulty arises out of a mistake in regard to 
the real state of this whole question, as it is raised 
and discussed in this chapter. It is a mistake that 



THE STATE OP THE QUESTION. 123 

is not unnatural when we look at the question from 
a modern point of view. We are apt to regard it 
as a question between parties, both of whom equally 
hold the doctrine of a future state of reward and 
retribution, and who differ merely in their concep- 
tions of the nature of that state ; the one party be- 
lieving that the immortal spirit quits its fleshly 
tabernacle at death for ever ; the other, that it is at 
some future time to become embodied again. If 
the question is thus narrowed, it may be difficult to 
make it very palpable how the one opinion is less 
favorable to holiness, or tends more to licentious- 
ness, than the other. It is in this narrow aspect or 
bearing, however, that the question is apt to present 
itself to those who are familiar chiefly with modern 
discussions. Philosophic sceptics, on the one hand, 
maintain the immortality of the soul as a tenet of 
natural religion. Christian divines, on the other 
hand, advocate as a truth of revelation the real mat- 
erial resurrection of the body. 

Even in that view, however, it is a question of 
more importance than at first sight appears, in its 
relation to the interests of personal purity and prac- 
tical duty. It is one thing to think of my future 
life hereafter, as the final escape and emancipation 
of my soul, my better part, from that gross physical 
frame whose companionship clogs and debases it 
here. It is quite another thing to look forward to 
my soul's resuming that very frame, and having it 
for a companion through eternity. In the former 
case, I am apt to feel as if it mattered comparatively 
little how I use this body of mine, what liberties I 



124 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

take with it, what indulgences I allow it, since it is 
not properly myself, nor any vital part of myself, 
hut rather an extraneous encumbrance which the 
pure ethereal spirit in me is to shake off, — in order 
that, being rid of its temporary associate's lower 
tendencies and agitations for ever, it may itself soar 
aloft, on the wings of its own higher aspirations, in 
the regions of cloudless mental serenity and repose. 
You may tell me, no doubt, that I may still have to 
answer, in my soul or spirit, for deeds done in the 
body ; that I may be called to account, and made to 
suffer, for the excesses and crimes of my bodily 
state, even after that state has come conclusively to 
an end. And I can see how my spiritual essence 
may retain, as it departs, some flavor of the sordid 
cask in which it has for a time been lodged. But 
the idea still haunts me, that when I " shuffle off 
this mortal coil," I part with what has been the real 
occasion of my sufferings and sins, and pass into a 
purely spiritual mode of being, in which ultimately 
I must emerge out of all the fleshly darkness and 
degradation of earth, into heaven's own pure and 
perfect light. 

Thus the unseen future after death stretches itself 
out before me, when it is the immortality of the soul 
only that is my hope. It wears a dreamy, ideal, un- 
substantial character; apt to become more and more 
dim, intangible, impersonal ; — till I am almost fain 
to lose myself, like those old visionaries in the East, 
in the great thought of all finite intelligences being 
at last absorbed into the one Infinite Mind. 

Some such tendency as this has always been found 



THE GNOSTIC DOCTRINE OF MATTER. 125 

more or less avowedly associated with the mere be- 
lief of the soul's natural immortality, apart from the 
doctrine of a bodily resurrection. 

It was, in point of fact, a tendency most marked 
and decided in the case of those heresiarchs who 
were already marring the simple gospel by the intro- 
duction of Oriental subtleties. The favorite dogma 
of these gnostics, or knowing ones, — that matter is 
in itself essentially and incurably corrupt, and is 
the cause of all corruption, — compelled them to 
deny the possibility of a literal bodily resurrection. 
Nothing but a spiritual resurrection could find a 
place in their creed ; and they held that, in the case 
of believers, or, at least, in the case of the initiated, 
that spiritual resurrection was "past already." The 
soul, renovated by faith, is raised to newness of life. 
In its new life, it is hindered and held down by the 
body, until death sets it free. Then, instantly, or 
after a period of probation or purgation, the slough 
of the flesh is cast off; and ever after, for ever, all is 
well. 

From this speculative theory of theirs, two prac- 
tical conclusions flowed. It led them to throw the 
entire blame of whatever evil still adhered to them, 
not on the renewed and risen soul, but on that dead 
and defiled body which would not let the soul purely 
and freely live. And, worse than that, it led them 
to argue that the amount of evil, more or less, which 
might still adhere to them, was really very much a 
matter of indifference, since being all centred in the 
body, it would be all got rid of when the body was 
cast aside. 

11* 



126 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Thus by brief stages their error led to sin. The 
speculative argument for license was but too con- 
genial. They might wallow in the filth and mire 
of moral pollution ; it would affect only that mor- 
tal part of them which is hopelessly debased and 
doomed, at any rate, already. The leprosy, however 
loathsome, would ere long be buried in the tomb, — 
with that mortal part which alone it touches. Their 
spiritual nature would then be pure and free. 

Even in these early apostolic times, this vile and 
vicious logic of debauchery was beginning to infest 
the churches. The Apostle Paul refers to it in writing 
to Timothy : "But shun profane and vain babblings : 
for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And 
their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is 
Hymenseus and Philetus ; who concerning the truth 
have erred, saying that the resurrection is past 
already; and overthrow the faith of some." It was, 
indeed, a canker — a gangrene — eating into the very 
heart of whatever society it touched, and turning it 
into a foul Epicurean stye. Ere long, it made sad 
havoc in some of the once fairest portions of the 
church ; such havoc as at a later period was wrought 
among the fanatics, whose violent crimes and licen- 
tious excesses were the scandal of the Reformation. 

Eo wonder Paul was filled with intensest alarm, 
if there was any symptom of a plague like this break- 
ing out at Corinth. And, in truth, there was but too 
much cause. The shameless laxity of morals that 
made the city famous, or infamous, throughout all 
the civilized world of antiquity, might well awaken 
anxious concern for the purity of the church being 



LICENTIOUS TENDENCIES. 127 

kept unblemished there. The unwise and unfaith- 
ful tolerance of incest in a member of the church, 
with the grounds of expediency, false tenderness, 
and false security, on which that tolerance seemed 
to be vindicated or excused, made the danger more 
palpable. And now an opinion is openly broached 
as an article of religious belief, of which the plain 
meaning is, — and of which the obvious effect must 
be, — to license, as all but harmless, whatever one 
calling himself a saint may choose to do in the body. 

Well might the apostle,*in these circumstances, 
utter the solemn warning: "Be not deceived: evil 
communications corrupt good manners." 

You who are tempted to listen to the speculations 
of these deniers of the resurrection; you who are 
beginning to find pleasure and take part in their 
discussions ; you little know what risk you are 
running. 

Their views have a certain plausibility; a show 
and prestige of more than ordinary spirituality. 
Their conceptions of the future state are a refine- 
ment on the coarse and commonplace teaching of 
vulgar Christianity, with its local heaven, its ma- 
terial hell, and its actual, bodily resurrection of 
the dead. There is something in their lofty ideal of 
the unseen and eternal, — dim and shadowy, per- 
haps, — but yet fitted to captivate the imagination. 
It is so calm and pure ; — the region, the domain, 
of mind alone; — of mind expanding with its own 
high thoughts ; and with no bodily senses, no bodily 
organs, to let in the disturbing forces of any mate- 
rial world any more. It is in some views of it, an 
attractive ideal. 



128 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

You listen. You are fascinated. Surely, to say 
the least of them, such " communications" as these 
must be, at any rate, harmless. To be familiar, to 
be conversant, with speculations so sublime, may 
elevate the soul. It cannot surely debase it. You 
may safely suffer yourself to be interested and 
charmed. 

But beware. Be not deceived. You do not yet 
see the practical bearings of that line of thought 
which you are beginning to like so well. You do 
not see to what these "communications" — these 
communings you are so fond of — really tend. Be 
assured, however, that they are "evil." They are 
unsound in themselves, and therefore mischievous. 
They have the directest tendency to "corrupt good 
manners." 

You may fancy you can indulge in them with im- 
punity. Your convictions are so strong, your prin- 
ciples so fixed, on all the great fundamental tenets 
of Christian faith and practice, that on this con- 
fessedly obscure topic, the precise nature of the 
future state, you may allow yourself a little latitude. 
Even if these deep thinkers push their views a little 
too far, and in their recoil from other men's gross 
materialism, overdo, as it were, their own spiritual- 
ism, is not theirs, at all events, an error on the safe 
side ? One would almost rather, on such a theme, 
err somewhat with these high intellects, these en- 
thusiastic souls, than tamely trudge on, with the 
uninquiring crowd, in the dull level track of an im- 
maculate, stereotyped resurrection creed. 

So you may be sometimes apt to feel. But, again 
I say beware. You little think that this super-refin- 



AWAKE TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. 129 

ed spirituality which so fascinates and intoxicates 
yon, has in it the germ of the most unblushing sen- 
suality ; that it carries in its bosom a principle which, 
when fairly followed out, makes self-denial and self- 
sacrifice mere folly, and the freest, foulest, self-in- 
dulgence innocent and good. Beware, lest the spell 
of a sort of opium-inspired dream be upon you. 
" Awake to righteousness, and sin not." 

Awake ! as from the deepening lethargy of weari- 
ness and wine ; (for such is the full meaning of the 
word.) Shake off the drowsiness that steals over 
you, as you yield yourselves helplessly up to some 
fond vision, carrying your rapt soul away into the 
realms of bright spirit-land and fairy-land. " Awake 
to righteousness." (v. 34.) Awake righteously. 
Awake, so as to take a right view of things as they 
really are. From the visionary ideal, awake to the 
actual reality. Let there be a righteous awakening; 
an awakening according to righteousness. You 
have been dreaming, half-intoxicated, of some 
visionary, ideal, spiritual perfectibility, to be reach- 
ed by the soul's absolute rejection of the body; the 
ethereal particle which thinks and feels becoming 
pure and perfect, as it quits for ever its tenement of 
clay. I call for a righteous awakening ; an awaken- 
ing to righteousness ; such an awakening as may 
bring you back to a right apprehension of the real- 
ities of your position, in the view of the righteous 
Lawgiver, and in relation to his righteous law and 
judgment. Thus only can you be preserved from 
fatal error. Awake to righteousness ; awake right- 
eously ; " and sin not." Awake thus, that you may 
not err. Awake also that you may not sin. 



180 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Alas ! that so peremptory a warning and call 
should be needed. And yet it is far from being 
superfluous. " For there are among you some who 
have not the knowledge of Christ." They may 
affect to know much, far more than others, of mind, 
or soul, or spirit, human and divine. Theories of 
all sorts, concerning the Infinite Mind, and the way 
in which finite minds may converse and commune 
with the Infinite, may be familiar to them as house- 
hold words. And they may be at home in speculat- 
ing upon the human spirit's ascension, or absorp- 
tion, into the divine. But of God personally they 
are ignorant; of God, as one awakened to right- 
eousness, one righteously awakened, one under an 
awakening of righteousness, must know him. They 
are ignorant of God in that character of holy, right- 
eous, judicial sovereignty, in which, as lawgiver and 
judge, he stands forth before the eyes of all who are 
righteously awakened — awakened to righteousness, 
by the Holy Spirit " convincing them of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment." 

And surely this ignorance, in your case, is inex- 
cusable. That, after all that you have heard of 
Christ and of his cross — of Christ as a ransom, and 
of his cross as a redemption — any of you should 
still prefer the heathen dream of a spiritual immor- 
tality, to the assurance that your whole selves, body 
as well as soul, being redeemed and saved, are to 
live again, and live for ever ; this implies an amount 
of ignorance, as to what God, the Righteous One, is, 
— and how he deals with you in righteousness, — that 
is as little creditable as it is safe. " I speak this to 
your shame." 



UNION TO CHRIST. 131 

II. We are thus brought to the second explanation 
which may be given of Paul's earnestness and anx- 
iety in insisting on the doctrine of the resurrection. 
The apostle, I am persuaded, is here thinking of that 
deeper and wider view which he has been taking, as 
to the bearing of this denial of the resurrection, not 
only upon the character and nature of the future 
state, but upon the entire scheme of the gospel, as a 
provision of life and salvation for the lost and guilty 
children of men. 

Let it be remembered that in all his previous rea- 
soning, his study is to make it clear that the denial 
of the general doctrine of the resurrection, imply- 
ing as it does a denial of the fact of Christ's resur- 
rection, cuts up by the very roots the hope of those 
who have believed in him ; and that, too, with refer- 
ence, not exclusively or specially to the future state 
after death, but with reference to the life that now 
is, as well as that which is to come. His argument 
is based on the intimate and close union which faith 
effects, or rather, which the Spirit by means of faith 
effects — between you who believe, and Christ in 
whom you believe. In virtue of that union you are 
dead in him, because he died for you. It was a 
penal death of condemnation that he died for you; 
it is a penal death of condemnation that you die in 
him. He died, a criminal, bearing your guilt. You 
are dead, as guilty criminals, in him. So God, the 
Father in his righteousness deals with him for you. 
So in his righteousness he deals with you in him. 

But what if this be all ? If Christ is still under- 
lying the sentence which on your account he accept- 



132 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

ed, then yon, in him, are underlying that sentence 
too. And it must be so, if there be no resurrection. 
For in that case Christ is not risen. He is still under 
the power of death. He is not wholly delivered from 
the doom which in your stead he consented to bear. 
That the body prepared for him in the virgin's womb 
should be inanimate ; that it should be lifeless in 
the dark grave ; this was part, and no inconsidera- 
ble part, of that doom. And if, as these speculators 
tell you, there is and can be no such thing as a res- 
urrection ; if, in consequence, you must explain 
away, on some ideal theory, the opened tomb, the 
absent body, the eating of broiled fish at the Sea of 
Galilee, the "handle me and see, for a spirit hath 
not flesh and bones as ye see me have;" — if, in 
short, Christ is not risen bodily ; then all proof is 
wanting of his emancipation, and yours in him, from 
the penalty of sin. All proof is wanting of his 
righteous justification for you, and your righteous 
justification in him. 

"What, then, is the use or benefit of your faith in 
such a Saviour ? It does but expose you, as it ex- 
poses me, to hourly jeopardy, to death daily, to fight- 
ing with wild beasts at Ephesus. And why should 
you or I run such risks, and so sacrifice ourselves, 
for the sake of one, of whom however we may love 
him for his well-meant attempt to save us, we still 
can only say at the best, with the forlorn disciples 
going to Emmaus, — " We trusted that it had been 
he who should have redeemed Israel ?" 

It is this making void of the whole doctrine of 
redemption that the apostle dreads, as the issue to 



THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION MADE VOID. 133 

which these rash speculations about the resurrection 
of the body tend; and it is from this source that he 
anticipates the tide of lawless and licentious error 
as about to flow in upon the church. 

You lose your apprehension of a new life, to 
which, as to your whole persons, body as well as 
soul, you are bodily and personally already raised, 
in Christ your risen Lord. To apprehend that life 
as a life begun now; as a life moreover to be per- 
fected, not by the soul's quitting the body, but by 
the body's rising again; — to apprehend the future 
resurrection life as a reality now; — to recognize 
yourselves, your entire persons, as already raised 
together with Christ, in your being justified, and 
destined ultimately to be raised together with Christ, 
in your being glorified; — this is an animating faith 
and hope; — a faith and hope, coming home, with a 
living sense of intense personality, to your bosoms. 
It may well nerve you for great works and great 
trials. It may reconcile you to the crucifying of all 
fleshly lusts. 

But where are you if there be no resurrection, and 
if, in consequence, Christ be not risen? All idea of 
such personal dealing with you on the part of God ; 
his judicially absolving and accepting you, as on the 
supposition of his having raised Christ from the 
dead, he would have been held judicially to absolve 
and accept him; all idea of his raising you to a jus- 
tified life, as in that case he would manifestly have 
raised Christ; — the notion of any such mode of 
treatment for you at the hands of God; — must be 
renounced and abandoned. You can but fall back 
12 



134 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

on the vague hope that somehow, this Christ may 
have made provision, not for expiating your guilt 
and reconciling you personally to God now, but for 
drawing out of you some element of good that may 
survive the destruction of your body, and may ulti- 
mately, through that destruction of the body, unite 
itself, in some transcendental spiritual fashion, to 
him who is a spirit, and who alone is good. And 
from such a hope, the inference is not far to seek, 
that with the body, and in the body, you may do 
what you please. 

To make this difficult subject, if possible, some- 
what plainer, and to connect this last way of con- 
sidering it with the first (only reversing the order;) 
let me ask attention to two practical views of the 
bearing of this doctrine — the doctrine of the resur- 
rection — on your personal holiness : — 

I. How does it affect your present state and stand- 
ing, as in the sight of God? Evidently, according to 
the apostle's judgment, if there is no resurrection 
there is no justification. You must in fact, on that 
supposition, abandon the notion of any judicial pro- 
cedure on the part of God, either with Christ for you, 
or with you in Christ. It is not in any such way that 
you can hope to be saved. If that were the divine 
plan, — with reverence be it said, — it has, if there is 
no resurrection, proved a failure. A ransom, no 
doubt, has been found; a voluntary substitute has 
presented himself — unexceptionable — infinitely wor- 
thy. The Father, as the righteous judge, has laid 



IS THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION A FAILURE ? 135 

on him your iniquities, and inflicted on him your 
doom. He has died for your sins. But he is dead 
still. Death has got and kept hold over him. His 
soul, indeed, may be free. But as to his entire man- 
hood, his complete humanity consisting of soul and 
body in one — as to that entire manhood of his which, 
for us men and for our salvation, he assumed — he is 
not delivered. Though, " in the days of his flesh, he 
made supplication, with strong crying and tears, unto 
him that was able to save him from death, he is" not 
"heard in that he feared." He is not really saved from 
death. His human nature which, that he might die, 
he took, is still the victim of death. It suffers muti- 
lation. "What survives the cross and the grave is 
not the entire manhood, but some ethereal, spiritual 
essence extracted out of the manhood. It is an 
impalpable, ghostly phantom or ideal that I see ; not 
the warm, breathing Jesus of Nazareth; an unsub- 
stantial spirit, not the real and actual " man Christ 
Jesus." 

And what follows ? Why this : That even the Son 
of the Highest could not take your nature, that he 
might stand in your place, without coming under 
that law of death which attaches to your nature by 
reason of sin ; and so coming under it, that he can- 
not be delivered, except at the expense of the bodily 
part of that nature being, even in his case, left to lie 
and rot hopelessly in the tomb ! Even he, the Holy 
One and the Just, cannot save or sanctify the body. 
He may succeed in extricating from it the soul. He 
may begin and carry on now a dealing with the 
spiritual part of you, which, when the fleshly part of 



136 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

yon is cast away, may result in your spiritual perfec- 
tion. But lie cannot, as your substitute, reinstate 
you, as you now are, bodily, in the position of favor 
with God, which for your sin you have lost. He 
cannot present you now, as you are, bodily, before 
his Father, that you may be justified. For he is not 
himself justified, bodily, for you. He is not raised 
from the dead. 

Now if this be a gospel at all, it is a very different 
gospel from that which you have been accustomed 
to believe. It sets altogether aside the whole doc- 
trine of atonement by sacrifice, in any fair sense of 
these terms. The fundamental idea of guilt expiated, 
and the guilty justified, through union with him who, 
being made sin, died, and being the righteousness of 
God, rose again, — can have no place in such a sys- 
tem. Hence appeals like these become irrelevant 
and unmeaning: "Ye are not your own, ye are 
bought with a price ; therefore, glorify God in your 
body and in your spirit, which are God's." " Christ 
hath redeemed you from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for you." "He died for your sins, and 
rose again for your justification." " Eeckon ye your- 
selves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto 
God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

But are not these the very appeals which stir the 
believer's heart, like a trumpet call to arms, and 
summon him to glory and virtue ? Are not these 
the considerations which the Holy Ghost brings 
home to him as motives to holy watching and hea- 
venly devotedness ? — That he is to regard himself as, 
in his whole manhood, redeemed ; that he has passed 



THE NEW CHRISTIANITY. 137 

through an ordeal of judgment; that he has seen the 
sentence of death recorded against him, executed 
upon the person of the Son of God, in his stead; 
that believing, and accepting this substitution, he 
has been crucified, he is crucified with Christ ; that 
nevertheless he lives, being quickened together with 
Christ; that "the life he now lives in the flesh, he 
lives by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him 
and gave himself for him; and that "the love of 
Christ constrains him to live, not unto himself, but 
unto him who died for him, and who rose again." 

These are the views of the resurrection, in its 
bearing on our present state and standing before 
God, which your sentimental spiritualists would have 
you to cast aside. And what do they give you in 
their place ? What is their scheme of Christianity ? 

At the best, it is little more than an improvement 
on the methods which thoughtful men have been al- 
ways trying, for extricating their better part, or, as 
they say, the divine part that is in them, from the 
polluting contact of what is fleshly, or what is earth- 
ly. Jesus is somehow now your leader, pattern, 
guide, in this process of emancipation ; which, go- 
ing on more or less in this w T orld, will at last be per- 
fected, or put in the way of being perfected, after 
death, in the world to come. This is all, or nearly 
all, they have to say. 

Alas ! it will but ill meet the case of a really 
awakened man, whose conscience testifies to him 
that his guilt is a reality, and whose heart longs for 
real peace with his God, as the only way to purity 
and love. 

12* 



138 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Hold fast, then, your faith in the resurrection, and 
especially in the resurrection of Christ, both as a 
matter of fact, and as a matter of doctrine. You 
believe it as a matter of fact. That is well. But 
believe it also, with an intelligent eye to its doctrinal 
significancy. This was what these Corinthians lost 
sight of; and losing sight of that, — the bearing of 
the resurrection as a matter of doctrine, — they were 
more easily persuaded, to let it go as a matter of fact. 
But be ye fully persuaded, not only that it is a fact, 
and a great fact, but that it has a meaning, and a great 
meaning. Recognize in it a justification ; Christ's 
justification for you, and your justification in Christ. 
Behold the Father as the righteous judge, justifying 
him ; pronouncing him to be no longer guilty, no 
longer laden with the guilt of your sins which were 
on him ; well pleased in him for his righteousness' 
sake ; acquitting and accepting him ; declaring him 
to be the Son of God, with power, by his resurrec- 
tion from the dead. And believe ! oh, you have full 
warrant for believing, whoever you are, whatever 
your guilt, whatever your unbelief hitherto ; believe 
now at once ; believe in God your Father as acting 
towards you now precisely as he acted towards Christ 
then ; treating you now precisely as he treated him 
then; justifying you now as he then justified him; 
loving you henceforth for ever, even as he loveth him. 
Believe this, all of you, and live. Live all of you as 
thus believing. This is gospel peace and gospel 
holiness. 

. II. How does this doctrine of the resurrection 



THE WATERS OF LETHE. 139 

affect, not your present state and standing merely, as 
in the sight of God now, but your hope as regards 
the life to come ? And in this view what is its bear- 
ing on the interests of morality, and on your person- 
al holiness ? 

Here, in one word, let it be said, it is this doctrine 
of the resurrection which alone gives anything like 
tangible reality to the future state, considered as a 
state of reward and retribution. 

If, when I die, I am to go out of this body, the 
body which connects me with the scene of my per- 
sonal history in this present life, and if I am to be 
out of it for ever after, I can never quite rid myself 
of the idea that I am to leave that personal history 
itself behind me, and that its chequered recollections 
and experiences are to trouble me no more. 

Yes ; and the idea is apt to be but too welcome. 
Willingly, I often feel, most willingly and right 
gladly, would I have the whole w T arp and woof of 
the web that has been woven for me, or woven bv 
me, upon earth, cut for ever clean out of the great 
loom of time. Willingly would I consent to the en- 
tire record of my passage from the cradle to the 
grave being obliterated and blotted out for ever by 
one sweep of the pen of silent oblivion over it. 
Sunny spots there have been, bright days ; but no 
day so bright as to be without its clouds ; no spot so 
sunny as to want its shadow. And oh ! what weari- 
ness have I felt amid them all ; how vain and hollow 
have been my joys; how manifold my bitter griefs. 
And everywhere what sin ! what self-reproach ! Yes, 
it were well to have it all, from first to last, can- 



140 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

celed ; and for all its busy stir and strife, its vain 
laughter, its tears, to have nothing but a blank, 
which neither I nor any other spirit can ever read 
again. 

Or, if I would have any exception made, if there 
are some few dear friends to whom I would not like 
to say farewell for ever, how in that other world 
would I choose to meet them ? Passages of love 
come rushing on my memory as I am leaving them, 
interchanges of kindly confidence and fondness. 
Shall we talk over these when we are together again ? 
There is for a moment rapture in the thought. But, 
ah ! here too what sin ! what self-reproach ! I can- 
not, without many a keen pang of regret, nay, of 
remorse, recall our past endearments and familiari- 
ties. Better, after all, that when re-united in a holier 
and happier region, we should begin our living inter- 
course anew. We shall have fresh materials there in 
abundance for the exchange of thoughts and feelings 
then freshly purified. And our converse will be all 
the closer if no memories of a former fellowship, less 
pure and holy, shall intrude. 

Yes ! I am still willing, right willing, to be for ever 
absent from the body. It has wrought me sin and 
sorrow enough. Let me have no more of these bodily 
infirmities, vicissitudes, and changes. Let my soul 
live before thee, oh God ! 

Such, I am persuaded, must often have been the 
frame of mind in which even believers in Christ have 
been inclined to look forward to a future state. 

IsTow, if it be so in my case, if it is thus that I con- 
template my hereafter, may I not be falling into the 



THE DANGER OF UNDERVALUING THE BODY. 141 

very error which Paul condemns ? I do not, it is 
true, avowedly adopt a creed which formally denies 
a future reckoning. But I fill and soothe my mind 
with vague notions of a dreamy sort of immortality 
of bliss for the soul. The thought of my having to 
give an account for the deeds done in the body, re- 
cedes gradually into the background. And my an- 
ticipations of the life that is to come, growing more 
and more transcendental and ideal, grow less and 
less influential over the actual bodily doings of the 
life that now is. This must ever be the tendency, 
when it is a simple belief in the immortality of the 
soul that is my hope ; — or when I fail practically to 
realize, in its application to my present duty, the mo- 
mentous fact of Christ's past, and of my coming, 
resurrection. Unconsciously, insensibly, I find my- 
self, in my secret heart, beginning almost to reason 
like those speculators of old. I am apt to feel as if, 
with reference to this or that small instance of sloth 
or of self-indulgence, it cannot really matter much 
how I act. It is but an affair of the body after all. 
It is a transient and accidental infirmity of the body. 
The essence of my soul's life in and with Christ is 
untouched. My spiritual walk with God in Christ is 
safe. 

Oh ! my friends, beware of the first approach of 
this most subtle and insidious temptation. And 
that you may beware of it, hold fast your faith in 
the doctrine of the resurrection. You may well 
indeed rejoice in the thought that at death you are 
to be absent from the body; not, however, because 
absence from the body is in itself to be desired ; but 



142 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

because to be absent from the body is to be present 
with the Lord. You "depart to be with Christ, 
which is far better." But never forget that the real 
eternity before you, is not what begins at death, but 
what begins at the resurrection. Then, you live 
again in the body; in the very body, as to all essen- 
tial properties, and to all practical intents and pur- 
poses, in which you live now. 

I am to be alive again in this body. And I am 
to live in it for ever. If so, dare I dream of sepa- 
rating this body, or any thing done in this body, or 
any thing that touches this body, from myself? 
Can I now imagine, for a moment, any portion or 
passage of my present bodily history left behind, 
canceled, and obliterated ? 

Fain would I often break, even in this life, the 
thread of continuity between the past and the 
future. Fain would I cherish the hope that it may 
be broken, when I pass into the life to come. But 
no; it cannot be. The fact of the resurrection — 
Christ's and mine — gives the lie to the delusion. I 
am to live, not a ghost, a spectre, a spirit. I am to 
live then, as I live now, in the body. 

Oh ! that I were so living now, and always, in 
this my body, as I shall wish I had lived, when 
I come to live in it again ! Let me never, at any 
time, in any circumstances, lose sight of this solemn 
thought that the deed, which I am now doing in 
the body, — the thought I am thinking now, the 
word I am speaking now, the work I am working 
at now, in the body, — must follow me. I may per- 
haps lay it down at death. But I must take it up 



THE THREAD OF EARTHLY LIFE RESUMED. 143 

again at the resurrection. This deed of mine must 
follow me into that future and eternal life. It must 
follow me. For what purpose ? To shame me be- 
fore the Judge ? to sting me ? to vex me with a sense 
of my deep* ingratitude to him that died for me, 
— my heedless selfishness and shameful guilt in 
wounding him afresh ? What terror is there in the 
prospect ! 

And yet, to you who are in Christ, and who fall 
asleep in him, it need not be all terror. It need not 
be mere terror. 

When the broken thread of your bodily life is 
united again at the resurrection, its earthly history 
will doubtless come up again. It will come up 
more clearly far than you can trace it now. It will 
all come up. And many, too many, things will 
there be in it, that when discovered anew, may well 
startle and appal you. They passed almost unno- 
ticed at the time; you got over them easily; you 
soon forgot them. But you see them now ; you feel 
them now. The risen Saviour, as the Judge, is 
showing them to you, his risen saints. 

He is showing them to you ; not that he may visit 
you for them ; not that he may upbraid you with 
them ; but that he may give you a new insight into 
the riches of that love which, even in spite of them, 
has saved you. What he shows you, in that day, of 
these deeds done in the body, may be one more 
lesson of humiliation and godly sorrow. But along 
with them, he shows you the blood which cleanseth 
from them all, the righteousness which covers them 
all, the charter of free forgiveness which cancels all 



144 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

our guilt. Yon "obtain mercy of the Lord in that 
day." With what new rapture of admiring and 
adoring gratitude, perceiving now at last how much 
you are forgiven — and, therefore, loving much — 
will you join the song, "Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain, for he was slain for us." 

Nor will this be all the experience of that hour 
when your bodily life begins again, and your earthly 
history comes up. It will uot be all a bringing forth 
of evil. There are lines in that history, if it be the 
history of the lowly and loving walk of faith, which 
you maybe glad to resume again ; interrupted studies 
to which you may apply yourselves again ; inquiries 
begun, which you may prosecute again; habits of 
activity in God's service which you may exercise 
again; researches into his works and ways which 
you may carry on again; friendships and brother- 
hoods which you may cultivate again. 

It may be largely the same life as now; but, oh ! 
how different ! Now you study, as one examining, 
with bleared eyes, pebbles on the shore; then you 
range, with open vision, over the boundless ocean 
of truth. Now you darkly grope and guess; then 
you ask, and know, even as you are known. Now 
you nag and grow weary; then with untired wing 
you fly on errands of love from the Father ever- 
more. Now his works and his ways are shrouded 
in gloom, he walks in the sea, his path is in the 
mighty waters ; — then all is unveiled ; in his light 
you then at last see light. And then your fellow- 
ship of love with kindred spirits is unbroken. 
There is no more sorrow, or sighing, or separation. 



" THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM." 145 

And, oh! consummation of joy, there is no more 
sin ! 

Thus to take up again, in the body, your present 
earthly history, may well be felt by you to be bless- 
edness indeed. The anticipation of it may animate 
you to holy watchfulness and diligence, and lead 
you ever to be asking the stirring questions: — Is 
the life I am leading now, a life I would wish to 
resume hereafter? — Is the work I am doing now, a 
work that I would wish to follow me hereafter? 

For there are works which will follow you to 
your joy. When the Judge, remembering what 
you yourselves have forgotten — noticing instances 
of good service of which you yourselves were at the 
time ashamed — righteousness which you yourselves 
felt to be filthy rags — points to some of his little 
ones whom you have pitied and helped; — how will 
your heart burn within you as you hear him say, 
"Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these my 
brethren, ye did it unto me !" 



13 



DISCOURSE IX. 

But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body 
do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, 
except it die : and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body 
that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other 
grain : but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every 
seed his own body. — 1 Corinthians xv. 35-38. 

f I ^HE reasoning of Panl now takes the form of 
-*- an answer to a supposed or anticipated objec- 
tion ; and for the right understanding of the reason- 
ing, it is most important that we form a correct 
notion of the objection. This is all the more neces- 
sary, because modern ideas on the subject to which 
it relates are apt somewhat to mislead us. It will 
be proper, therefore, at the outset of our analysis or 
exposition of this second branch of the apostle's 
argument, to ascertain as exactly as possible the 
precise import and bearing of the question to which 
it is intended to be a reply. 

That question is raised in the thirty-fifth verse — 
" But some man will say, How are the dead raised 
up? and with what body do they come?" 

There is no occasion, as it seems to me, for divid- 
ing, as some are for doing, this question into two ; — 
as if it were first asked, How can there possibly be a 
resurrection of the dead at all? and then, secondly, 
If so, where are their bodies to come from? and 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 147 

oi what sort are they to be? The cavil is really 
one. 

It is not quite the same as the Sadducean cavil to 
which the Lord thus replied, " Ye do err, not know- 
ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God," (Mat. xxii. 
29.) There the Lord charges the Sadducees, who 
denied the resurrection, with limiting the power of 
God. Apparently this caviler with whom Paul 
deals might and would admit the power of God to 
raise the dead. If it was the mere restoring of life 
to a dead man that was in question, — the bringing 
of him back to this present world, to live in the 
body here as he did before he died — there could be 
little difficulty in admitting the possibility of that. 
The Sadducees themselves could scarcely venture 
to question it. In the face of such miraculous facts 
as Elisha's restoring the Shunammite's child to life, 
(2 Kings iv.,) and our Lord's raising Lazarus and 
the son of the widow of Nain (Luke vii., John xi. ;) 
— not to speak of apostolic acts of the same kind; — 
it is not easy to see how any one admitting as true 
the historical events of Christianity, and its divine 
origin as proved by them, could raise any doubt as 
to the possibility of a resurrection, considered sim- 
ply as a resuscitation of the body, or the return of 
the deceased person in the body to a life like this 
present life, with its ordinary animal functions, and 
its material offices and works. 

Nor, I am persuaded, would such a reasoner have 
been much startled or staggered by any additional 
difficulty which the body's decay and rottenness in 
the tomb might be supposed to present. He is not 



148 LIFE IN A KISEN SAVIOUR. 

thinking of that at all. Very possibly, if it were a 
resurrection like that of Lazarus that he had to deal 
with, he might be little, if at all, troubled by any 
such suggestion as that of Martha; "Lord by this 
time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days." 
The objector is supposed to be thinking of quite 
another question. It is not, How may the dead be 
raised up ? — as for instance, to such life as they have 
in this present world ; and, With what bodies may 
they come ? — as for instance, to such a world as this 
present world repeated over again. The power of 
God, he might say, to effect such a resurrection, I by 
no means deny or doubt. That the persons who 
have been named, not to speak of many others, were 
restored to this present life in the body after they 
were dead, I gladly and gratefully admit. Nor do I 
mean to raise any scruple as to the possibility of a 
resurrection like theirs taking place, even in the case 
of those whose bodies have not only been consigned 
to the grave, but left for years and ages to moulder 
there. That is not really my difficulty at all. 

My real difficulty is this, Can the dead be so raised 
up as to be fitted for the life to come ? What bodies, 
what sort of bodies, are they to have ? Are they to 
have the identical bodies which they have now? 
Will such bodies be suitable for the spiritual and 
eternal world ? Will they do for heaven ? 

We are apt to look at this whole argument from a 
modern point of view. And at this stage especially 
we are apt to have in our eye the miserable drivel- 
ings of modern infidelity, compared with which the 
inquiries of these old speculators, — fools, as the 



WHAT SORT OF BODY WILL DO FOR HEAVEN. 149 

apostle justly called them, — were yet at all events 
respectable. It was not with them a question of 
particles and atoms. They did not make a work 
about scattered bones ; burnt ashes ; carcasses eaten 
piecemeal by worms, or swallowed whole by ravenous 
beasts and monsters of the deep ; dead human flesh, 
decomposed into the elements of the food by which 
living human flesh is sustained and fed. Objections 
of that sort, based upon the supposed difficulty of 
extricating, from the mass and mould of this earth's 
ever-changing matter, the identical bodily frame that 
once belonged to each one of its human inhabitants,, 
are comparatively of recent date. It is not improb- 
able that if the doctrine propounded for their belief 
had been that of a return of the saints, in the body, 
to the world as it now is, or some such world, — 
these "fools" would have raised no such foolish 
questions as those by means of which wise men, so 
called, have since their time sought to perplex the 
minds and shake the faith of simple Christians, in 
reference to the great truth of a literal and bodily 
resurrection of the dead. 

In point of fact, their hesitancy about admitting 
that truth arose out of a much graver and more se- 
rious consideration. They could not understand 
how, even if the bodies of dead saints were raised, 
they could be so raised as to be at home in that fu- 
ture economy, that other heavenly world, for which 
the present earthly world and economy is prelimin- 
ary and preparatory. And hence the question, 
" How are the dead raised up ? and with what body 
do they come ?" 

13* 



150 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Even in this view of it the apostle regards the 
question as a foolish one. " Thou fool," he exclaims ; 
for art thou not in this matter a fool ? Is not the 
difficulty which thou art conjuring up really a sense- 
less one ? Does it not show either great ignorance, or 
great want of thought ? A very simple analogy may 
suffice to remove it. Look at what happens in your 
own hands every day. " Thou fool, that which thou 
so west is not quickened, except it die." You sow it 
with a view to its being quickened, and living. But 
you sow it, in the full knowledge that it can be 
quickened, and can live, only by its undergoing a 
process of death, decay, and dissolution. That is 
the condition of its being quickened and living. 
And the process which it must undergo is such as to 
change its whole nature and character; and so to 
change it that w T hat springs up is something altoge- 
ther new : — " thou sowest not that body which shall 
be." What you sow, is " bare grain ;" it is the mere 
seed "of wheat, or of some other kind of corn." 
What comes up has a very different material or cor- 
poreal structure and organization from that which the 
"bare grain" which you sow possesses. What sort 
of body it is that is to come up, depends on the sov- 
ereign will of the great Husbandman. " God giveth 
it a body as it hath pleased him." But whatever 
change there may be, identity is not in any wise 
to be lost. For there is to "every seed his own 
body." 

Some would read the first clause of the thirty-sixth 
verse thus : — " That which thou sowest is not quick- 
ened except it be dead;" that is, unless it be dead 



THE "BARE GRAIN" QUICKENED BY DYING. 151 

at the time of sowing it ; dead before thou sowest it. 
Thou sowest not the living plant, but the dead seed. 
And as it is the dead seed that, when sown, is quick- 
ened into a new living plant, so it is the dead corpse, 
which thou buriest, that is quickened into a new liv- 
ing body. 

It is doubtful if the words will naturally admit of 
that meaning ; nor does it seem to be the meaning 
required by the necessity of the analogy. The anal- 
ogy rather appears to be against it, if we consider the 
real nature of the objection which is to be met. 

The question is, What sort of bodies are the saints 
hereafter to receive ? Are their bodies, when they 
are raised, to be the same sort of bodies that they 
were, when earth claimed them as its own ? Will 
such sort of bodies do for heaven ? 

Nay, you forget the process through which their 
bodies pass while lying in earth's kindred dust. 
Death does for their bodies there, what is done in the 
ground for the seed-corn which you drop in it. Death 
causes them to be as the seed-corn is when it dies in 
the soil, — rotting, as it seems, and almost melting 
away. What death thus works in the seed-corn in 
the ground, it works also in the body in the grave. 
And the issue may be similar. The body that rises 
from the grave may be quickened as the seed-corn is 
quickened; quickened, — not to be such as it was 
when, like the seed-corn, it died and decayed ; but 
quickened, — to bloom in a new and fresh life, fitted 
for the upper skies. 

It is not, then, the seed considered as already dead, 
that is compared to the human body in its dead state ; 



152 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

but rather it is the process which the seed undergoes 
when sown, that is represented as similar to the grad- 
ual dissolution of man's mortal frame in the grave. 
The seed decays and is dissolved ; it is lost and dis- 
appears in the soil into which it falls. That is the 
indispensable condition of its being quickened. So 
also the body returns to its kindred dust, and be- 
comes dust itself. That is the condition of its be- 
ing quickened too. In either case, the original 
frame, — of the seed in the one case, of the body in 
the other, — is broken up, and its former organization 
is utterly destroyed. It is a new life altogether that 
it receives. If, then, the body is to live anew, it 
must first die ; it must undergo decomposition ; and, 
as in the case of the seed "which thou sowest," lose 
for ever the fashion which it had before. When it 
reappears, it reappears refashioned, recast, remould- 
ed. " That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that 
body which shall be." What is sown, what is sub- 
jected to the process of dissolution, is "bare grain." 
It is merely a grain, a seed, — perhaps of wheat, or of 
some other kind of corn. What afterwards lives 
again, is something quite different. When the bare 
grain that was sown and died comes back again to 
life, it is not the same sort of body that it was before. 
It is not the same in its fashion and structure. It 
has such, a body, or such a bodily organization, as it 
may please God to give it. For it is the Lord's do- 
ing. It is the Lord who raises anew to life the bare 
seed that is sown and dies. It is the Lord who, ac- 
cording to his pleasure, endows it with whatever 
body he may think fit to give to it. It may be a 



DEATH THE CONDITION OF NEW LIFE. 153 

body in some respects, wholly unlike the body which 
is sown and dies. But what of that? Is it not 
enough to know that in this resurrection process, — 
" every seed gets its own body ?" 

It is dangerous to push an analogy of this sort too 
far. But it seems fitted legitimately to suggest three 
important practical conclusions : — 

I. Death, dissolution, decay, decomposition, — 
whatever may be the body subjected to that process, 
— is not only no obstacle in the way of that body liv- 
ing again, but affords a presumption that if it is to 
live again at all, it may be to live in a superior con- 
dition ; it may be to live as possessed of a new na- 
ture, a new organization ; adapted to the new sphere 
into which it is to be introduced. 

The general law or principle to which Paul appeals 
as applicable now, in this present state of things, to 
all material substances, — or at least to all that have 
the character of living organized bodies, — would 
seem to be this : — that death may be to them a step 
in advance. It may be the preliminary to their hav- 
ing any real life. What is sown is not quickened 
except it die. Not only is its death no presumption 
against its living again ; it maybe the condition, and, 
as matters stand, the indispensable condition of its 
really living more truly than it lives now. 

In its present state the body does not, in the fair 
and full sense of the term, really live. That warm- 
breathing frame of yours, with all its well-knit 
sinewy strength, its fine proportions, its beauteous 



154 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

form and color, — what life has it ? Such life as the 
grass has, or the flower of the field. The wind pass- 
eth over it and it is gone. The last of it is its com- 
ing to be like a seed, a grain, — a pickle, as we say, 
of corn. And even that is destined to corruption. 
Can any life spring out of this death ? — any living 
frame out of this dead carcass ? 

Why not? In the case of the seed, the "bare 
grain" cast into the ground to die, the resurrection 
is to a new life ; — to a life altogether new and fresh. 
The dead seed is quickened into a new life. The 
old takes end in the dissolution or death. The new 
emerges out of the soil in which the old has died. 
So in the case of this mortal body of mine, dying 
and dead, the life which it is to receive may be new 
and fresh ; as new and fresh as was the life which 
man's body had, before the condition of mortality 
attached to i# t at all. Nay, it may be a better life 
even than that. Its death makes it capable of a new 
life. Its existence under the law of death comes to 
a complete end. If it is to exist again, it may be under 
a new law of life. Death is not the destruction, but 
the quickening of it. " That which thou so west is 
not quickened, except it die." 

II. The body which you are to receive in the res- 
urrection may differ from that which you now have ; 
— very much as what springs out of the ground, and 
presents itself to view in ripe autumn, in the shape 
of a luxuriant stock of corn, differs from the bare 
seed dropped into the ploughed earth in spring. 

The body that now is, and the body that is to be, 



IDENTITY OF THE BODY. 155 

are not to be exactly the same. In structure and or- 
ganization they may differ widely. It is expressly 
said — " That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that 
body that shall be." It is then a different body that 
is to come forth when the grave is opened at the last; 
a body different from that which mourning friends 
laid there. What the difference is will afterwards, 
as the argument advances, partly appear. In the 
meantime, the fact is clearly enough asserted. And 
the assertion of it may meet both of two difficulties 
which you sometimes have in apprehending the 
reality of the resurrection of the dead. 

How, you ask, can the scattered particles of my 
material frame be gathered and compacted together 
again, so as to be once more organized into symmet- 
rical strength and beauty? And, if that wer ' ■ 
ble, what sort of body would that be wit 1 _ o 
enter heaven? 

As to the first difficulty, you u^ perceive that 
there is no occasion for " considering too curiously" 
what becomes of the dust or ashes that remain when 
the body is buried or burned. Nor need you per- 
plex yourselves with nice and subtle inquiries as to 
how the matter of your body is to be separated from 
the matter of other bodies, of which it may have be- 
come the food. To all such silly questions, the old 
and sufficient answer is, that the substantial identity 
or sameness of your body, even in this life, does not 
depend on its consisting, or being composed of, iden- 
tically the same matter. It has been computed, that 
once in seven years the whole matter of your body 
is changed, so that at this moment, your body has 



156 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

not in it one particle, one atom, of the matter that 
it was made up of seven years ago. And yet to all 
intents and purposes it is the same body. An addi- 
tional, and even perhaps a more satisfactory reply, 
is furnished by the analogy of the seed, or " bare 
grain." It is sown "bare grain." It reappears in 
the full-grown stalk of corn. Identity of particles, 
sameness of matter, is there out of the question. 
And the analogy meets also, and still more directly 
and satisfactorily, the other difficulty. If my pre- 
sent material frame, you say, were reconstructed and 
reorganized, would it be a fitting tabernacle for my 
immortal spirit, in its unchanging and eternal home ? 
What better solution of such a perplexing doubt 
than this — " God giveth it a body as it hath pleased 
him I" Leave it to him. "Jehovah Jireh," the 
Lord will provide. It is the "bare grain" thou 
sowest that will be quickened; but it will not be 
"bare grain" when it is quickened. " Thou sowest 
not that body that shall be." What thou sowest, 
dying and dead, will rise and live. There will be a 
body corresponding to that which is sown. It will 
be such as God sees fit that it should be. " God 
giveth it a body as it hath pleased him." 

HI. Still there is real identity; — "To every seed 
his own body." I cannot doubt that this is added 
of set purpose, to meet a cavil that might be raised, 
a painful misgiving that might be felt, in conse- 
quence of the analogy which has been used, and 
the appeal which has been made to the divine sov- 
ereignty. 



DIFFERENT, YET THE SAME. 157 

If my present body is to have no more likeness or 
relation to my resurrection body, than the "bare 
grain" has to the stalk of wheat that comes up when 
it is dead ; — if, in fact, my resurrection body may be 
any body that God is pleased to give ; — how am I to 
.recognize myself, how am I to be recognized by 
others, as the same person then, bodily as well as 
mentally, that I am now ? If all corporeity is to be 
new, according to the free discretion of God, what 
will there be to connect me with the past, and with 
those who, in the past, were my companions in the 
body? !Nay, but it is not so. "Every seed is to 
have its own body." It is to be such a body as God 
may be pleased to give, but still it is to be its own 
body. It is to be a body which the individual him- 
self, and all who knew him, may and must recognize 
as his own. It may be changed from what it was 
when the tomb received it, — weak, wasted, worn. It 
may wear the bloom of summer life, instead of the 
cold ^bleak deadness of the " bare grain." It will 
not, however, be so changed but that the instinct of 
conscience will feel it to be the body in which the 
deeds of this life were done. It will not be so 
changed but that the eye of affection will perceive 
it to be the very form, on whose clay-cold lips, years 
or ages ago, it imprinted the last long kiss of fond- 
ness. 

Yes ! I am to rise again in my body ; different, but 
yet the same; with such difference as it may seem 
good to God to make ; with such sameness as shall 
identify me personally, in body and in soul, to my- 
self and to all my friends. "When I die and become 
14 



158 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

pure spirit, I know that I shall resume my bodily 
frame again ; — changed, much changed, in its struc- 
ture and organization ; — yet so thoroughly one with 
the bodily frame which I lay aside now, that I must 
answer in that body, for the deeds done in this. 
When I see thee die, O my brother, I know that I 
shall embrace thee in the body again; — altered, 
greatly altered for the better; — but with the same 
kind smile that now lingers on thy wan counte- 
nance ; — and the same hand that now presses mine 
in a parting grasp ; — and the same heart that beats 
in unison with mine, until, alas ! it beats no more ! 



DISCOUKSE X. 

All flesh is not the same flesh: hut there is one kind of flesh of men, 
another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There 
are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celes- 
tial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory 
of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars : 
for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resur- 
rection of the dead. - 1 Corinthians xv. 39-42. 

"pTJRSUnSTG- the line of thought indicated in the 
*- previous verses with reference to the question — 
"How are the dead raised up? and with what body 
do they come?" — the apostle may he supposed to ask 
—Is not the question answered now? Is not the sin- 
gle analogy of the hare grain coming up with a new 
body enough to answer it ? 

If not, then there are still three other facts — or 
analogies founded on facts — which may reconcile 
you to the idea of the dead rising again, with bodies 
substantially and to all intents and purposes the 
same, and yet with such difference as God may see 
fit to make : — I. Bodies on earth differ from one 
another as to the kind of flesh they possess. "All 
flesh is not the same flesh : but there is one kind of 
flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of 
fishes, and another of birds." II. Heavenly bodies 
differ from earthly. " There are also celestial bodies, 
and bodies terrestrial : but the glory of the celestial 
is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." 



160 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUK. 

III. Heavenly bodies differ among themselves." 
" There is one glory of the sun, and another glory 
of the moon, and another glory of the stars : for one 
star differeth from another star in glory." 

I. Even on earth, and within the range of our 
earthly knowledge and experience, we find instances 
enough of variety in the structure and organization of 
the bodies that belong to it. "All flesh is not the 
same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, 
another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another 
of birds." Surely these instances are enough to 
silence the inquirer when he asks, What sort of 
bodies are the dead, when they are raised up, to 
have ? 

What folly to imagine that there can be any real 
difficulty here ! Do you not perceive that even on 
this earth there is a great variety of bodies, and that, 
too, although they all consist of flesh? There are 
animal bodies, all composed of flesh, yet differing 
widely from one another. Men, beasts, fishes, birds 
— all have bodies, fleshly bodies. Grod gives them 
bodies as it has pleased him. All of them, more- 
over, have bodies that are fleshly. But the flesh is 
not the same in all ; nay, it is not the same in any 
two. They all differ from one another as regards 
the flesh of which they are made. 

Now, if God can form here, on the earth, so 
many different sorts of body; all of flesh, but of flesh 
all but indefinitely and endlessly diversified; how 
should it be thought a thing incredible that he 
should provide for his risen saints bodies suited to 



VARIETIES OF FLESH ON EARTH. 161 

their new condition ? Even though it were to be 
assumed that the substance or material of which 
these bodies are to be formed, is to be the same as 
that of which animal bodies on earth are made, — 
that it is to be flesh, — still we have presumptive 
proof from analogy, that it may be flesh of an en- 
tirely different sort from what vexes us and weighs 
us down in our present earthly experience. 

See how very different is the flesh of men even 
now, from the flesh of beasts, fishes, birds ! Men 
have bodies of flesh as beasts have, and fishes, and 
birds. But how different ! And how vitally im- 
portant the difference ! Were my flesh now the 
same as that of a beast, a fish, a bird; had I the 
flesh, the fleshly body, of the most perfect of these 
dumb denizens of earth, and sea, and air; I could 
not discharge my functions, I could not vindicate 
and assert my place, as the intelligent worshipper of 
the Creator, and the lord of this created world. The 
hand apt to hold, the tongue apt to speak, must be 
mine, if my flesh is to be adapted to my position, and 
is to be the minister of my free soul. So, accord- 
ingly, God has ordained. The flesh in me he has 
moulded otherwise than in beasts, fishes, birds. 

And what, then, should hinder him from mould- 
ing that same flesh otherwise than it now is in me, 
when he raises me from the dead? May not the 
difference between what I am now, and what I am 
to be then, as to my body, be at least as great as the 
difference now between me and a beast, a fish, a 
bird ? If there can be flesh in common between me 
and a reptile now, and yet my flesh differing from 

14* 



162 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

its flesh, as much as my immortal spirit differs from 
its mortal life, why may there not be flesh in com- 
mon between me as I am now, and me as I am to be 
hereafter ; yet so that my flesh then may differ from 
my flesh now, as much as my soul made perfect in 
holiness then, will differ from my soul now, groan- 
ing under "the body of this death?" 

There are various kinds of flesh in this present 
world, adapted to the nature and condition of the 
various tribes inhabiting it. "Why may there not be 
other kinds of flesh in that other world beyond the 
resurrection, adapted to the nature and condition of 
those who are to inhabit it? Can he who gives one 
kind of flesh to beasts and another to men here, not 
give to men one kind of flesh here, and another here- 
after? There can be no real difficulty, therefore, as 
to the bodies with which the dead, when raised up, 
are to come. Even limiting our view to this present 
world, we see enough to prove that God can give 
fleshly bodies of all various kinds. And we have 
the strongest reason, from the analogy of fleshly 
bodies here, to presume that, if needful, he can find 
a kind of flesh adapted to man raised from the dead, 
— although man should then be as much above what 
he is now, as he is now above beasts, and fishes, and 
birds. 

II. Thus far the analogy of earthly bodies proves 
that even if the resurrection body were to consist of 
flesh, as they do, there is nothing inconceivable in 
the idea of a suitable kind of flesh being provided. 
But earthly bodies, composed of flesh such as we 



BODIES TERRESTIAL — BODIES CELESTIAL. 163 

handle in men, beasts, fishes, birds, are not the only 
bodies of which we have knowledge. " There are 
also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial : but the 
glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the 
terrestrial is another." In answering the question, 
How can fit bodies be found for the risen saints ? — 
we must remember that the manifold working of the 
power of God is not limited to the fashioning of flesh 
into the countless varieties of body which we see on 
earth. There are other bodies besides those of earth. 
You see them in the heavens. On any starry night 
you may see them. What they are made of — what 
sort of flesh, if they are made of flesh, is theirs — 
what kind of matter they have, you cannot tell. 
They are bodies, you see ; visible, and, as you may 
fairly gather from your observation of their move- 
ments, palpable bodies, substantial and material. 
They differ in appearance, in glory, from the earthly 
bodies with which you are familiar. They may differ, 
for anything you can tell, in the kind of matter of 
which they consist. As there is one kind of flesh of 
men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and 
another of birds ; so there is one glory of the celestial 
bodies and another of the terrestrial. 

If, therefore, the analogy of earthly bodies will not 
content you, consult the analogy of the heavenly 
bodies. If the vast variety of bodily frames into 
which flesh is moulded among the bodies of earth 
is not enough to satisfy you that a suitable bodily 
frame may be found for the new state of the soul in 
heaven, there are still other bodies to which you 
may be referred as proofs and instances of the ex- 
haustless resources of omnipotence. 



164 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

You wish to know, you say, how the dead are 
raised up, and with what bodies they come. "Well, 
there are various kinds of bodies within the range 
even of your present cognizance. Take this earth 
itself alone. The flesh, the fleshly matter of which 
its bodies are composed, is so pliant and plastic in 
the hand of the great Creator, that he can adapt it, 
in one form, to the occasions of the creeping worm, 
and in another, to the exigencies of the highest 
human soul. Do you imagine that he cannot, if it 
be needful, adapt it also to the aspirations of that 
soul when it has passed into the heavens ? 

Do you still doubt ? Are you still at a loss ? Then 
look up. There are heavenly bodies in yonder sky, 
differing in glory from all you are acquainted with 
on earth. God gives to these multitudinous stars 
bodies as it has pleased him; and can he not find 
bodies for his saints to be raised up in ? Can he not 
find for them bodies as much better than those they 
have now, as the flesh of men is better than the flesh 
of beasts, fishes, birds? Can he not find for them 
bodies differing from their present ones, as the glory 
of the celestial bodies in the firmament above differs 
from the glory of the terrestrial here below? 

III. But even this is not all. There is yet another 
analogy to silence, if not to satisfy, the caviler. 
Among the heavenly bodies themselves, also, there 
is diversity. " There is one glory of the sun, and 
another glory of the moon, and another glory of the 
stars: for one star differeth from another star in 
glory." 

See what can be made of matter ! You ask how 



VARIOUS GLORIES OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES. 165 

material bodies can be found for glorified spirits in 
the heavenly places ? My answer is in the question, 
Have you exhausted in your inquiry, can you think 
that God has exhausted in his creative energy, all 
the forms and fashions into which matter may be 
cast? 

I speak to you, not as learned philosophers merely, 
but as men of common sense. I address myself to 
your common observation of the facts of nature. 

It is the question of the future body that is at 
issue. What sort of body is it to be, what sort of 
body can it possibly be, so that it shall not clash and 
conflict with the spiritual conditions of that spiritual 
state ? 

To this I answer — First, That there are corporei- 
ties enough on earth, physical organizations, bodily 
structures, with differences at least as great as any 
distinction that must separate the future bodies of 
the saints from those which they now possess. Sec- 
ondly, If varieties of bodily conformation on earth 
will not suffice, you may read the lesson taught by 
the material heavens. The Creator's power of deal- 
ing with matter so as to fit it for mind at any stage 
of advancement, is not to be measured merely by 
the forms and frames which flesh takes on earth. 
There are bodily existences or material bodies, else- 
where, in a higher region, soaring in a purer air. 
The heavenly orbs move freely: would such matter 
as they are made of content you ? Even if it would 
not, I do not despair of satisfying you. For, thirdly, 
I find among these celestial bodies a gradation like 
what I find in bodies terrestrial. I find sun, moon, 



166 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

stars, in the celestial world, corresponding to men, 
beasts, fishes, birds, in the terrestrial. Matter, I now 
see, is capable of indefinite elevation, through the 
several kinds of earthly flesh, aud the gradations of 
glory in the heavenly bodies. Why may it not rise 
higher still ? 

Such, in substance, is the apostle's argument. He 
is dealing, let it be remembered, with the question 
or objection of those who doubt if matter can ever 
be so refined as to furnish the material for bodies fit 
to enter the heavenly state. He is cutting away the 
ground of their difficulty ; he is at any rate silenc- 
ing and shutting their mouths ; by an appeal to facts 
and phenomena which they themselves know. 

It seems strange, in this view, that any should 
imagine the celestial bodies here meant to be the 
bodies which the higher heavenly intelligences may 
be supposed to possess now ; which must be such as 
the saints may suitably receive when they come to 
be "as the angels." An analogy of that sort is more 
in accordance with our modern modes of thought on 
these subjects than with those that prevailed of old. 
The subtle teachers with whom Paul had to reason 
would have made very light of any argument based 
on the corporeity of the inhabitants of the spiritual 
world. The assumption that angels and spirits have 
material frames, or bodies of a finer texture than 
ours, and the inference that therefore we may here- 
after have similar bodies too, would have been scout- 
ed by them as the baseless logic of an impossible 
hypothesis. It is mere conjecture, they would say. 
It is a wild imagination. 



MATTER OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES. 167 

But they did not deny the materiality of the sun, 
moon, and stars. They admitted that these heavenly 
bodies were composed of matter. And some of them 
were accustomed to speculate somewhat curiously 
about the nature of the matter of which they were 
composed. They held it to be matter of a rarer and 
purer sort than the gross and sordid dust, earth, or 
ashes, of which, in this planet of ours, both inani- 
mate stuff and animal flesh are made up. They 
conceived also of differences and gradations in this 
respect among the heavenly bodies themselves. In 
the brighter and stiller of these luminaries they saw 
matter becoming more and more unearthly, refined 
and ethereal ; — until, perhaps, in the great fiery body 
of the sun itself, the brilliant orb and proud lord of 
day, it reached the utmost perfection of rarity and 
purity of which it is susceptible. 

Now, to men familiar with such contemplations 
and cogitations as these, the apostle's argument is 
entirely to the point. He answers these fools accord- 
ing to their folly ; and he answers them well. 

In the first place, he proves to them that the resur- 
rection body, which the saints are to have hereafter 
in heaven, need not be of the same kind with the 
body which dies and is buried, and rots away here 
in the earth. It no more follows that what is raised 
from the grave is to have the same structure and or- 
ganization with what is laid in the grave, than it fol- 
lows that what comes up from the spot where a seed 
has been dropped, must possess the same bodily form 
and character as the seed. The fact, on the other 
hand, that what springs up from the "bare grain" 



168 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

that is sown, is so very different from the "bare 
grain" itself, affords a strong presumption that what 
is to be raised from the tomb at the resurrection may 
differ still more widely from what is lying there now. 
The "bare grain" is a body adapted to the place 
which it is to occupy, and the function which it is to 
serve, under ground. It comes up not " bare grain." 
It would not in that form be adapted to the place 
now to be occupied, and the function now to be 
served, not under ground, but in the bright and warm 
light of day. It comes up, therefore, having a body 
suited to this new sphere, such a body as God is 
pleased to give ; and still so that every seed has his 
own body. So these material frames of ours, as they 
are now compacted and organized, are admirably 
and exquisitely adapted to the place they have to oc- 
cupy, and the function they have to serve, in this 
lower world, which is the underground of heaven. 
But if they were to rise, such exactly as they are 
now, they might be as ill adapted to the sunshine of 
that higher heavenly region into which they are to 
pass, as the "bare grain" sown, if it were to spring 
up "bare grain" still, would be to the earthly sun- 
shine into which it has to emerge. Surely, on every 
ground of rational analogy, the fair presumption is, 
that he who brings up the " bare grain" that is sown, 
not " bare grain" still, but that graceful, rich, and 
wavy stem of ripe and yellow corn, which delights 
the eye and gladdens the heart in a summer's noon- 
day — will bring up the body that is now mouldering 
in the dust, not such as it is now, fitted to grow up, 
and flourish, and wither in a day ; but such as will 



THE SUM OF THE ARGUMENT. 169 

suit that brighter and glorious sphere where all dis- 
solution and decay are unknown. Yes ! It will be 
" beauty immortal" that will " wake from the tomb." 

Having thus cleared the way by establishing the 
possibility and the probability of a change, and a great 
change, upon our present bodies at the resurrection, 
the apostle next challenges the objectors to prove 
that suitable bodies — bodies suitable for the eternal 
state — may not be framed. Consider, he says, the 
almost infinite varieties, in form, structure, and or- 
ganization, that within the range of your own know- 
ledge you may see this matter, of which you are so 
jealous, assume; — this very matter that seems to you 
so stiff, and hard, and unaccommodating. Even on 
this earth, see how it is moulded, gross flesh as it is, 
into a thousand different sorts and shapes, to suit all 
conceivable kinds of animal life. It is plastic enough 
to be fitly moulded for the crawling worm ; and yet, 
made of the same flesh, " what a piece of work is 
man !" Then lift up your eyes to these heavens. 
There, by your own acknowledgment, are bodies 
differing from those of earth ; bodies, too, differing 
from one another. Passing from star to star, you 
find matter still, but matter, as you yourselves be- 
lieve, becoming more and more pure, more and more 
attenuated, more and more glorious. And is it that 
God who has so dealt, and is so dealing, now, with 
matter and with material bodies, before your very 
eyes, that you will not trust to fashion fitting resur- 
rection bodies for his glorified saints ? 

The apostle's reasoning, though thus far merely of 
a negative sort, intended to silence the objector, is 
15 



170 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

yet very sublime. It carries us in its wide sweep 
over all the visible creation in all space and time. 
From the earliest organic form emerging out of that 
old primeval class, onward and upward, through the 
teeming and successive tribes of being that have 
peopled this earth, until man is reached ; then away 
from earth, among the far-off splendors in the vault 
of heaven — the imagination soars, gathering accu- 
mulated evidence of the manifold power and wisdom 
of God. And then, piercing the veil that shrouds 
the unknown future, how may the devout soul body 
forth to the spiritual eye, countless new applications 
of that wisdom and power, in forms of surpassing 
beauty, fashioned for the highest sphere, and fit to 
share the highest glory with which the manhood of 
the risen Saviour himself can be crowned ! 



DISCOURSE XI. 

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption ; it is 
raised in ineorruption : it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory : it is 
sown in weakness ; it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body; it is 
raised a spiritual body. — 1 Corinthians xv. 42 — 44. 

ri\EE apostle advances a step in his high argument. 
-*- He has already sufficiently disposed of the ob- 
jection implied in the question, "How are the dead 
raised, and with what body do they come ?" He has 
done so negatively, as it were, or by means of proof 
putting to silence the objector. He has been defy- 
ing him to establish, in the face of obvious analogies, 
the impossibility or improbability of a bodily resur- 
rection of the dead ; yes, and a bodily resurrection, 
such as may meet and satisfy the highest demands 
even of the most transcendental spirituality. In the 
first place, there are generic varieties of flesh enough 
on earth ; — secondly, there are differences enough in 
respect of material form and structure between the 
heavenly bodies and the earthly ; and thirdly there 
are varieties enough, in these respects, among the 
heavenly bodies themselves ; — to make it a plain pre- 
sumption, that the author of all these physical or- 
ganizations can be at no loss to find fitting bodies 
for immortal souls in the eternal state. 

Something more like positive assertion is now, as 
it would seem, ventured upon ; not merely negative- 



172 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

ly to silence, but positively to inform. Three dis- 
tinct points or particulars are specified, in respect of 
which the resurrection body may be expected to 
differ from the present body. — " It is sown in corrup- 
tion ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dis- 
honor ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness ; 
it is raised in power." And the three are afterwards 
summed up in one general point of contrast or anti- 
thesis — "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a 
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there 
is a spiritual body." 

Let it be observed that the contrast throughout is 
between two living bodies ; not between a dead body 
and a living one. This is often overlooked ; and the 
oversight occasions great perplexity and confusion in 
the apostle's argument. 

When we read of what is sown in corruption, in 
dishonor, in weakness, we are apt to think of the 
lifeless corpse which we consign to the cold and 
cheerless tomb. We sow it in corruption ; for be- 
fore the burial, symptoms of decay occur. We sow 
it in dishonor ; for all our woful weeds and trap- 
pings of ostentatious sepulchral state are but de- 
signed to mask the creeping loathsomeness of death. 
We sow it in weakness ; for we yield it a prey to 
the weakest of reptiles, to worms of the earth. All 
this is true. Corruption, dishonor, weakness, are 
the characteristics of the dead body which we lay in 
the dust. 

But they are so, because they are the character- 
istics of the body while it breathes, and lives, and 
moves before our eyes. Death is not the cause of 



SOWN IN CORRUPTION. 173 

these characteristics, but only the effect of them. It 
is the occasion of their full manifestation ; it is their 
worst and final development. But corruption, dis- 
honor, weakness, are the attributes, not merely of 
my body when it is dead, but of my body as it now 
lives ; of my body at its best estate. It would be 
a poor thing to tell me that my body hereafter is not 
to be as corrupt, as dishonored, as weak, as my body 
when, after death, it lies rotting in the grave. What 
I care for is to be assured that, if I am to have a 
body at all, it shall be exempt from those qualities, 
or conditions, attaching to my present living body, 
which issue in that death. 

"What is sown, then ; what corresponds to the " bare 
grain;" this body of ours; — is a body that, whenever 
and however sown, is sown in corruption, in dis- 
honor, and in weakness. These are the three capital 
faults of our present mortal bodies. And the three 
faults are intimately connected and mutually re- 
lated. They fit into one another; they flow from 
one another; first corruption; then dishonor ; lastly 
weakness. 

I. Corruption is liability to dissolution and decay. 
The body that is to be sown in corruption is a body 
capable or susceptible of decomposition. It may be 
broken up. And when it is broken up, its frag- 
ments, or fragmentary remains, may be resolved into 
the constituent elements, or component particles, of 
which they consist. This process may go on piece- 
meal even during life. I may lose limb after limb 
by the cannon's shot, or the trooper's sword, or the 

15* 



174 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

surgeon's knife. I may be mutilated and dismem- 
bered, while still alive, until barely half a trunk and 
half a head of me are left. The bones of my severed 
legs and arms may be bleaching in the sandy desert, 
or they may have fed the monsters of the deep. And 
even what remains of my corporeal frame — scarce 
enough, perhaps, to allow the blood to circulate, and 
the heart to beat, and the brain to throb — will soon 
be dust. It will be scattered by the winds. It will 
be lost in the common earth of which all things that 
are born, and grow, and decay, and die, are made. 
Will that sort of material structure do for a resur- 
rection body ? 

II. But dishonor also belongs to what is sown; 
to the "bare grain;" to the mortal frame. And yet 
how smooth and symmetrical is that "bare grain;" 
that exquisitely fashioned corn of wheat ; so compact, 
so polished ! Wherein lies its dishonor ? What dis- 
grace belongs to it ? Alas ! it is perishable. Such 
life or vitality as it has must die out. The fashion 
of it must be lost in nature's universal tomb — the 
all-absorbing, all-assimilating earth. Of the purest 
"bare grain," therefore — of the finest corn of wheat 
— it may be truly said that it is sown in dishonor. 
Corruptibility is dishonorable. What is sown in cor- 
ruption is, of necessity, sown in dishonor. 

Hence this corruptible body has in it essentially a 
certain quality of dishonor, vileness, and shame. It 
is not that it may be prostituted to shameful pur- 
poses, and made the prey and victim of vile passions. 
Take it in its virgin purity, endowed with the most 



SOWN IN DISHONOR. 175 

nervous symmetry of manly vigor — the most flowing 
grace of female loveliness, — that your eye has ever 
beheld, or your fancy ever painted. That warm- 
breathing impersonation, in flesh and blood, of the 
very ideal of consummate beauty — is that devoid of 
honor, of comeliness, of glory ? Has it not an honor, 
a comeliness and glory, that brightest angels might 
pause to gaze on? Were it only possible that it 
might have imparted to it the elixir of life ! — that it 
might be steeped in some subtle essence of immor- 
tality, of incorruptibility! 

Ah ! my heart cries, were that given to thee, thou 
loved one, I would have thee to be ever as thou art 
now, the fairest of all beings in my eyes. I covet 
not for thee any fairer, more honorable, or more 
glorious tabernacle to lodge that bright spirit of 
thine; any worthier casket for so pure a gem; if 
only thou mightest continue always as thou art 
now! 

But I cannot be long, alas ! I cannot be always 
blind to what is but too visible to my aching heart. 
I see thee, even amid thy opening charms, showing 
symptoms of disease and dissolution. In thy very 
growth I trace the ominous beginnings of decay. I 
find thy beauty made to consume away like a moth. 
Under thy rich and rare clothing of joyous health, of 
radiant and smiling bloom, I watch the slow and 
secret gnawing of the insidious element of corrup- 
tion that is too surely to undermine it all. The honor 
that is so perishable is scarcely honor at all. I would 
embrace thee in that other world, fair as thou art 
now, and comely; I scarcely wish thee fairer. But 



176 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

I would embrace thee no longer liable any more to 
be sown in dishonor, because no longer any more 
liable to be sown in corruption; thy "mortality being 
swallowed up of life !" 

III. As corruptibility implies dishonor, so it occa- 
sions or causes weakness. It paralyzes physical 
strength. It paralyzes both strength and endurance 
and strength for action and performance. 

This firm and compact bodily organization of 
mine is doubtless in a measure strong. I can, by an 
effort, resist a large amount of force brought to bear 
upon me. I can put forth, upon an emergency, a 
power that I am myself surprised at. But how easily 
are men fatigued ! How frequently do they need 
repose ! How feeble also are they when matched 
with the material elements of nature, and the me- 
chanical forces lodged in the bodies, and moved by 
the instincts, of the beasts that perish ! 

True, man wields an empire all but absolute and 
irresistible over material elements, and over the 
brutal tribes. In a sense, even the winds and the 
waves obey him. The solid iron and the subtle 
electric fluid are equally at his command; he con- 
strains them to do his bidding. The ox also know- 
eth his owner, and the ass his master's crib. The 
mouth of the horse or of the mule is held in with bit 
and bridle. But all this power is got and kept, not 
by the exertion of physical strength, but by the re- 
sources and devices of mental skill. It is the inven- 
tive soul in man, not that body of his, however 
"fearfully and wonderfully made," that constitutes 



SOWN IN WEAKNESS. 177 

him lord in this lower world. Physically, man is 
among the weakest of animals. 

Look at the poor seaman left alone to buffet the 
waves of an angry sea. Or see the hunter in stern 
and solitary conflict with the lion, the tiger, or what- 
ever beastly power claims to be monarch of the 
scene. Physically, neither can stand his ground. 
The ocean overwhelms the one. The wild beast 
overmasters the other. When inventive man as- 
serts his most confident command over the stiffest 
and subtlest forces of nature, he is apt to be crush- 
ed among the smallest wheels of his own gigantic 
machinery. 

And then, how impotent is the human animal 
physically, in respect of bodily structure, to realize 
and act out his own ideal ! 

"Why should man, with a soul whose thoughts 
wander through eternity, find himself embodied in 
a frame and organization that yields and gives way 
before the pressure of mere force, mechanical, ma- 
terial, and brutal ? — a frame and organization, more- 
over, that will not bear the stress and strain of his 
own higher aspirations and better spiritual desires ? 
Why has he a body so unequal to the execution of 
the impulses of his soul ? I would be lord over all 
material force and law. Is that always to lord it 
over me ? 

But none of these defects will be found in the 
resurrection body ; neither corruption, nor dishonor, 
nor weakness. 



178 LIFE IN A KISEN SAVIOUR. 

I. That body is incorruptible, indestructible ; not 
liable to decomposition and decay; not composed 
of earthly particles ever changing, and ultimately 
to be resolved into the dust from whence they were 
taken ; but simple, we must assume, and uncom- 
pounded or indissoluble. It is a material body 
still ; visible, tangible, sentient, motive ; it is seen, 
it is touched, it feels, it moves. But the attribute 
of incorruptibility belongs to it, rendering it at last 
a meet companion for the immaterial and immortal 
soul. 

II. Then how fair is it, how honorable, how 
comely! And that not only outwardly, as often 
here a specious comeliness for a season decks the 
surface, beneath which the canker of incipient rot- 
tenness is eating. Physically as well as spiritually, 
in respect of body as well as soul, " the king's 
daughter is all glorious within." Nothing that can 
offend the most fastidious taste ; nothing that can 
suggest, by the remotest hint, any thought even the 
slightest, any idea even the faintest, of impurity or 
shame ; nothing that can ever cause a blush upon 
the countenance ; nothing for which the conscious 
bosom need ever heave a sigh ; nothing to disgust ; 
nothing to repel ; no latent sore or sickness soon to 
be too open ; no secret germ of what, when it comes 
out, may make the eye of tenderest love fain to look 
away; nothing of all that hidden corrosive poison 
which mars earth's brightest beauty ; — will be found 
in that body which, " sown in dishonor, is raised in 
glory." 



RAISED IN INC0RRUPTI0N, GLORY, POWER. 179 

III. And finally, as to strength, what shall we 
say? The materials and the structure of that body 
are to he such as no violence can either break or 
derange. No weapon aimed against it can hurt ; 
nor the fiercest blow touch it at all. Grosser mat- 
ter, whether alive or dead, animate or inanimate, 
cannot affect it. Again, all its avenues and inlets, 
for the entrance of sounds, and sights, and sensa- 
tions, of all various kinds of harmony and beauty, 
from the outer world, are enlarged a hundred-fold. 
And, moreover, its capacity of bearing the mind's 
highest and profoundest cogitation is enhanced in 
some corresponding proportion. It is endowed with 
eagle's, with angel's wings ; with eye far ranging as 
the sky-sweeping glass, and yet minute and deep- 
searching, beyond the utmost microscopic imagina- 
tion ; with hand that can at pleasure move and 
mould whatever it may choose to grasp. But we 
may not speculate. Enough to know that this in- 
corruptible and glorious body is to be no clog or 
restraint, through its impotency, on the free soul ; 
but apt and able, as its minister ; — strong to do its 
pleasure. 

The three particulars, in respect of which the 
resurrection body is to differ from our present mor- 
tal frame, are summed up, as it would seem, in one 
comprehensive and radical distinction : " It is sown 
a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." 

The distinction here asserted must be separately 
considered. I advert to it now merely to indicate 



180 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

its connection with the other distinctions which I 
have been attempting to trace. 

The characteristics of the natural body are cor- 
ruptibility, dishonor, weakness ; the characteristics 
of the spiritual body are incorruptibility, glory, 
power. The body that is corruptible, and therefore 
void of glory and power, is chiefly fitted for the 
purposes and functions of the animal life. It is 
adapted to the actions and usages by which the 
natural life of man is sustained in the individual, 
and transmitted in the race. But man is made for 
a higher life. Redeemed and renewed, the believer 
in Christ is capable of a spiritual life. His life is 
hid with Christ in God. So long as he is possessed 
merely of a natural body, his spiritual life depends 
on his keeping under his body, and bringing it into 
subjection. Hence his spiritual life in the natural 
body is a continual struggle. " The flesh lusteth 
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, 
and these are contrary the one to the other." Is it 
not then a bright and blessed hope which is given 
to us ; a hope fitted to minister to our patience and 
our holiness ; when we are told to look forward to 
the possession of a body more in harmony with that 
spiritual life which, with our present body weighing 
us down to earth, we find it often so hard a task to 
cultivate ? Animated by such a hope, may we not 
be moved to press toward the mark for the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus ? Shall we 
not now live by the power of the world to come ? 
Shall we not seek, by the help of God, to keep our- 



FASHIONED LIKE CHRIST'S GLORIOUS BODY. 181 

selves, in soul, body, and spirit, pure amid earth's 
sins, and calm amid earth's sorrows ; remembering 
that " our conversation is in heaven ; from whence 
also we look for the Saviour, the Lord J esus Christ : 
who shall change our vile body, that it may be fash- 
ioned like unto his glorious body, according to the 
working whereby he is able even to subdue all 
things unto himself." 



16 



DISCOURSE XII. 

It is sown a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a nat- 
ural body, and there is a spiritual body. — 1 Corinthians xv. 44. 

nnHE words natural and spiritual, as applied to 
"*- the body, have respect not so much to the na- 
ture of the substance of which the body is compos- 
ed, as to the uses or purposes which it is intended 
to serve. There is no occasion here for raising any 
curious or subtle question of metaphysics or psychol- 
ogy, as to the ultimate distinction between mind and 
matter, between pure mind or spirit, as we conceive 
of it, and the solid substance having extension and 
s divisible into particles, which we call matter. The 
meaning is not that the body spoken of as spiritual 
partakes of the essential nature of the spirit in man 
which, " when the dust returns to the earth as it 
was, returns to God who gave it;" but only that it 
is to be congenial or suitable to it. 

This is plain from a consideration of the proper 
meaning of the term natural. That term is con- 
nected with the word commonly employed to denote 
the principle of animal life, whatever that may be — 
the vital spark, the vital force, which man has in 
common with the beasts that perish. The adjective 
translated "natural," is not like our English adjec- 
tive " natural," derived from the abstract term 



SPIRIT, SOUL, BODY. 183 

" nature." It is formed from a noun which signifies, 
not nature, hut the natural principle of life, or the 
principle of the natural life, whether in man, or in 
the inferior animals.* The noun in question is 
sometimes rendered "soul," as in IThess. v. 23 — 
" And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; 
and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and hody 
he preserved hlameless unto the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ." There, according to a view of man's 
organization, or the constitution of his nature, then 
commonly received, spirit, soul, hody, are specified 
as its constituent parts or elements. The spirit, or 
that higher principle of intelligence and thought 
peculiar to man alone in this world, to which we 
now usually restrict the name of mind or soul ; the 
soul, or that lower principle of animal life, — with 
its instincts selfish and social, its power of voluntary 
motion, its strange incipient dawn of reasoning, — ■ 
which, common alike to man and heast, is so great 
a mystery in hoth ; and the hody, made to he the 
material organ and instrument of either principle, 
the higher or the lower; these three in one, this 
trinity, is our present humanity. 

But now, as we are at present constituted, at any 
rate since the fall, the two principles of which the 
hody is the minister — the higher spirit or soul, 
which thinks, and that lower soul, or, as we might 
equally well call it, spirit of hreath, which lives and 
moves — are not in harmony. On the contrary, they 
are at variance ; often at strife. And as Michael the 

* In Latin, animalis, from anima ; in Greek, -tyvzixos, from tyvxh* 



184 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

archangel and the devil contended, disputing about 
the body of Moses, so these two, the thinking spirit 
that allies us to the intelligence above us, and the 
animal soul or life that makes us companions of the 
dumb brute creation beneath us, strive about the 
body which each claims a right to use as its own. 
As no man, however, can serve two masters, so 
neither can the body serve its two masters rightly. 
It is a case of divided allegiance. In such a case, 
when a servant has two masters to serve, he usually 
hates the one and loves the other ; nor is it difficult 
to see to which of the two masters his heart inclines. 
The body, as now fashioned, indicates its preference 
not ambiguously. It is in the interest of the lower 
principle, the animal soul. It must be so ; for it is 
a natural body. It is a body adapted to the pur- 
poses of the natural life, or the natural principle of 
life. If we call that principle the "soul," as in the 
passage which has been quoted, then, to give the 
epithet exactly, it is a " soulish " body. It is a body 
of or belonging to such a soul, congenial to it, 
accommodated to it, in harmony, and, as it were, 
sympathizing with it. To that higher spirit, or 
soul, or mind, in man, which is the inspiration of 
the Almighty giving him understanding, the pre- 
sent body stands far more distantly and doubtfully 
related. When required to serve this diviner lord, 
when he would make use of it, the body is by no 
means so much at home. It is not so apt, so pliant, 
so plastic a minister by far. Reluctantly, and as 
the saying is, against the grain, it submits and obeys 
— if it submit and obey at all. 



THE STRIFE FOR THE BODY. 185 

Especially when this higher spirit in man comes 
in contact with a higher spirit still, the Spirit of 
God — when it is thns separated more than ever 
from the lower animal soul or principle of mere 
animal life, — or rather brought into a new attitude 
of antagonism, — then the body's leaning to the ad- 
verse side is most clearly seen and keenly, often 
painfully, felt. 

The two principles within us, that of the higher 
intelligent, and that of the lower animal life, are 
not unfrequently fain to compromise the strife 
which they wage about the body. Of the two, the 
higher is, alas ! the weaker ; the lower is by far the 
stronger. Too often the stronger prevails by its 
mere strength, drags the body out of the hands of 
its feebler but more honorable competitor, and 
prostitutes it to its own purposes, — to those uses 
of the mere animal life which, when uncontrolled 
by the thoughtful mind, are simply mean and base. 
Where so complete a mastery cannot be secured, 
the weaker power refusing to yield up the subject 
in dispute, — the physical frame, — to be wholly the 
victim and the prey of the other and stronger party, 
this last will consent to an accommodation. It will 
suffer the body to do some service to the thinking 
principle. There shall be intervals of pure and 
peaceful stillness when, freed from the fumes and 
vapors of sense, the serene unclouded brain shall 
be able to bear the stress of meditations the most 
profound, investigations the most elaborate, aspira- 
tions the most sublime ; the eye shall be clear ; the 
forehead cool ; the bosom calm ; the soaring spirit, 

16* 



186 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

ranging over the vast ideal universe of thought, 
shall scarcely feel even its loftiest flight of fancy, or 
its warmest flow of feeling, arrested or embarrassed 
or chilled, by any consciousness of the infirmity 
of its bodily attendant. Such concession may the 
lower and stronger principle of life occasionally 
condescend to make to the higher and weaker prin- 
ciple of thought. But it will be sure to reclaim the 
body as its own ; it will use it as its own all the more 
for its rival's temporary employment of it; and that 
rival will find, as things move on, the occasions on 
which it can command the body becoming fewer, 
and the service which on these occasions it can get 
becoming more and more inadequate, more and 
more precarious, more and more ungracious and 
constrained. 

So the lower principle still prevails in the strife 
about the body. Nay, even if the higher principle, 
putting forth unwonted energy and strength, should 
succeed in conquering the body for itself, the vic- 
tory is unsatisfactory. Behold the mystic, the fa- 
natic, the ascetic, the anchorite, whether saint or 
sage. His body, as it would seem, is wrested from 
the grasp of the lower soul ; violently, and often with 
most unnatural cruelty of self-denial and self-tor- 
ture. Starved, mortified, scourged, — it is scarcely, 
if at all, available for the common purposes of the 
animal life. It is wholly at the service of his high- 
est faculty; the faculty of life intelligent, of life 
spiritual, of life divine. 

So it should be. But, alas ! is it so ? Is it not far 
otherwise? The lower principle, defrauded of its 



THE BODY SERVING TWO MASTERS. 187 

due, resents and avenges the wrong. It fiercely 
invades the territory which should be sacred to 
pure thought and holy musing. The chafed spirit 
is forced to groan under the bitter experience of in- 
trusive animal instincts, emotions, passions, pains. 
Some satanic trial of carnality, some St. Anthony's 
temptation, some access of frenzy or of idiocy, or 
the utter break-down of all its lofty aims, extorts 
the sad confession, that the body with which it is 
associated, in which and by means of which it must 
for the present act out its high and perfect ideal, is 
still, alas! a natural body; in the interest and on 
the side of the natural soul or principle of life, and 
sure in the long run, one way or other, to make it 
only too apparent, — to which of its two masters it 
is determined "to hold." 

But there is a spiritual body. And for that spirit- 
ual body the spirit of the man whom the Spirit of 
God teaches, quietly and patiently waits, with earn- 
est longing, with calm and confiding hope. He, 
too, finds the body, as it is now fashioned, more 
adapted to the lower principle in him than to the 
higher ; he more than any other. For in him the 
higher principle, the spirit of intelligence and 
thought, has been elevated into fellowship with 
God; nay, made partaker of the divine nature. 
Reconciled by the blood of Christ, pardoned, ac- 
cepted, justified in him; renewed by the Holy 
Ghost in the spirit of his mind; loving, and so 
knowing God, who is love ; pure in heart, and 
therefore seeing God, the Holy One, as he is ; 
Christ-like in standing; Christ-like in privilege; 



188 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Christ-like in character ; loved as Christ is loved ; 
loving as Christ loves ; his spirit has a life to live, 
for whose needs and occasions a body, framed 
chiefly with a view to life of a very different kind, 
may well be felt to be insufficient and unsuitable. 

But what then ? Does he quarrel on that account 
with the body which he has now? Does he madly 
try to force it out of the line of its proper uses and 
functions — those for which at present it is mani- 
festly designed, as if he could change its nature ? 
He keeps it in subjection, indeed. He mortifies 
his members which are upon the earth. But he no 
more thinks of laying a rude arrest on those pro- 
cesses in the animal economy, and those arrange- 
ments and combinations in the social economy, for 
which the body as now constituted is fitted, — as if 
in some desperate effort to etherealize or spiritualize 
his physical as well as mental frame, and force his 
natural body to become a spiritual body, — than he 
dreams of altering the flesh of beasts, or birds, or 
fishes, into the flesh of men; or turning bodies 
terrestrial into bodies celestial; or one star into 
another star ; or the twinkling stars into the silvery 
moon ; or the moon herself into the gorgeous and 
glorious sun. 

Still he is right glad to know, and be assured, 
that there is a spiritual body — a body as congruous 
and congenial to the higher spirit of intelligence in 
him that is akin to Deity, as the present body is to 
that lower soul, or vital energy, which assimilates 
and allies him to the brutal tribes. 

We dare not even imagine the full meaning of 



THE BODY EXPRESSIVE OF MIND. 189 

this phrase — a spiritual body. But there are three 
ideas in regard to it, which we may venture to in- 
dicate. We hint at three of its probable charac- 
teristics. 

In the first place, it takes the impress or stamp of 
the higher spiritual principle of divine intelligence, 
or intelligence divinely enlightened and inspired, as 
easily and spontaneously, — as much in the way of its 
being a matter of course, — as naturally, in short, as 
the present body assumes the character, attitude, and 
expression of the lower principle of mere animal life 
— of animal feeling and emotion. It is as good an 
index of what is spiritual, as the present body is of 
what is animal, in man. 

The body which we now have is truly natural, 
soulish; congruous and congenial to the natural 
principle of the mere animal life ; in this sense, that 
it is easily acted upon by that vital energy, and is 
the ready index of its various moods and movements. 
For expressing the appetites, passions, and affections 
of that sentient and active vitality which we have 
in common with the brutes, what more apt and 
habile organ, what more sensitive and true electric 
medium, than the human form, the human face, the 
human voice ? Hunger, lust, rage, revenge, in all 
their modifications, — and with all their accompani- 
ments of cunning, fear, jealousy, hate, — are better 
imaged in the look and attitude of man, than in 
the look and attitude of any other creature. His, 
in this respect, is the perfection of the natural 
body. Without hypocrisy — studied simulation and 
dissimulation apart — what a tell-tale, what a re- 



190 LIFE IN A KISEN SAVIOUR. 

vealer of whatever is animal in me, is my counte- 
nance, air, manner — my ever varying and ever ex- 
pressive habit of body ! Not to speak of the leering 
eye, the liquorish mouth, and other similar symp- 
toms by which the grosser and more groveling pro- 
pensities of the animal soul are betrayed — see how 
anger dilates the nostrils, and pride curls the lip, and 
shame suffuses the cheek with blushes, and terror 
stirs the hair, and carking care or anxious envy knits 
the contracted brow ! 

Doubtless, even in its present state, while it is still 
a natural body, it may bear some impress of the 
higher spirit that it lodges. The broad pale fore- 
head may mark the lonely student; a certain inde- 
scribable peaceful glow, as of universal good will, 
may irradiate, as with a divine halo, the humble and 
loving saint. Nevertheless, it must be admitted, 
that whatever flavor or relish the cask may have of 
the purer element that is poured into it, — that is but 
slight and evanescent, in comparison with what it 
receives from the other element to which it is itself 
akin. It is the natural principle of life, in all its work- 
ings, that most easily and perfectly finds its vent, or 
outlet, or index, in the body — not the spiritual prin- 
ciple of high and holy thought. 

Language itself, which is a condition of our pre- 
sent bodily state and bodily organization, is an addi- 
tional proof of this. The faculty of articulate speech 
is indeed a great endowment. But inasmuch as it is 
a bodily faculty, depending upon the structure of 
the natural body which we now have, how inade- 
quate is it as an expression, as well as an instrument, 
of thought ! 



A GLANCE OF THE MIND. 191 

" How fleet is a glance of the mind ! 

Compared with the speed of its flight, 
The tempest itself lags behind, 
And the swift- winged arrows of light." 

"How fleet is a glance of the mind!" And how- 
slow is the utterance that expresses it! Yes, and 
how imperfect and insufficient too ! Especially when 
it is the spiritual mind whose fleet glance is to be 
traced ! 

It may be otherwise when there is a spiritual body. 
Thought may travel, not in the same mind merely, 
but from mind to mind, as with instantaneous, elec- 
tric flash, more swiftly than words rush through 
ocean along the magic wire from shore to shore ; 
thought, moreover, conceived and conveyed with a 
precision and exactness, a fullness and force, of which 
no tongue of man on earth is capable, — in a way for 
which no tongue, such as man has on earth, is need- 
ed any more. 

Let a condition of things be imagined, in which 
the higher spirit in man has a frame as expressive of 
itself, as the present body is of the animal soul or 
life, of which it is the exponent. For one thing, 
there is no more in that spiritual frame any ten- 
dency to express, any power of expressing, the emo- 
tions of the lower nature. It has no features, no 
gestures, no attitudes, no phraseology or vocabulary, 
for giving vent to the ideas, desires, and feelings, 
that relate to the functions of that animal life which 
is the lower nature. Nothing remains of that struc- 
ture of the body which exhibits you here as having 
appetites and passions in common with the beasts. 
That is much. But more than that, far more you 



192 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

gain. You find yourself in a body that in its new 
structure is the very image of your higher intellect- 
ual nature, the fitting index and expression of the 
spiritual life which you have in common with Christ 
in God. In and through that body, the glory and 
the beauty of your high intelligence and spiritual 
life shine as clearly, and as conspicuously, as your 
lower life reveals itself in the fashion of your present 
frame. And at pleasure, by an act of will, you 
clothe your thoughts in forms more meet for them 
than any words your present tongue can frame. Not 
piecemeal and in fragments, imperfectly conceived 
and imperfectly conveyed, — but full and fresh, entire 
and whole, — your ideas, at your pleasure, pass forth 
from your own to other minds. The spirit in you is 
no longer, as it were, pent up and straitened. It 
has a free scope and a large outlet and a full utter- 
ance. 

And those you live with are in the like case with 
yourselves. Transparently, translucently, in their 
shining frames, is the lamp of intelligent and spirit- 
ual life seen burning. Swiftly and surely do their 
high thoughts and holy musings pass from their 
minds to yours. 

What a fellowship of the saints is this ! It is a 
fellowship, not dim and doubtful, hesitating and 
reserved, as the best saintly fellowship on earth 
must be. 

Here, these natural bodies separate you, as spirit- 
ual men, from one another. At the best, they but 
very imperfectly and inadequately discover you, or 
enable you to discover yourselves, to one another. 



THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 193 

You can only partially know one another. You can 
only partially trust one another. The lower life is 
often seen and felt to be at issue, in others and in 
yourselves, with the higher. The spiritual cannot 
break through the natural. Hence you must neces- 
sarily be cautious, and more or less constrained, in 
your closest Christian intercourse. The very offices 
and arrangements in the animal and social economy, 
for which the natural body is fitted, make this in- 
evitable. But it shall not be so then. Whatever in 
the structure of your present body is merely natural, 
whatever pertains to the functions of the merely 
animal life, is for ever laid aside. It is a spiritual 
body that you have, — henceforth and evermore. 

Oh ! what a barrier is now removed ! How may 
the full tide of the spiritual life gush forth uncon- 
trolled from every bosom ! And as it freely circu- 
lates among the open and unveiled inhabitants of 
glory — that glory into which the hidden streams of 
grace have all been flowing — how, in the discovery 
of one another's hearts and one another's histories, 
may they find ever new occasion for the simul- 
taneous burst of praise — "Thou hast redeemed us!" 
Thou hast redeemed us all alike ! 

Are you expecting such a fellowship of the saints, 
as the result of what is sown a natural body being 
raised a spiritual body ? Are you making any corres- 
ponding sort of preparation for it ? 

Secondly. The body is an inlet, as well as an out- 
let. It is the index or image of what is within. But 
it is also an avenue inwards for things without. It 
17 



194 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

takes the stamp or impress of the inner life, what- 
ever that may be, for which it is adapted. It takes 
the stamp and impress also of the outer world, and 
conveys that stamp and impress of the outer world 
to the living principle, the master that it serves. 

Now, as at present constituted, being a natural 
body, made to minister primarily to the animal soul, 
or the principle of animal life, it naturally supplies 
its own master with appropriate and congenial food. 
Hence the bodily senses admit the outer world into 
the inner man, in the way most congenial to its 
natural or animal tastes and tendencies. 

Take the highest of your bodily senses — sight and 
hearing. In the natural body as it now is, which of 
the two living principles in you do they most readily 
serve ? — the animal, or the spiritual principle ? — the 
life which you share with the living creatures be- 
neath you, or the life which you share with the 
living creatures, — nay, with the living Creator, above 
you? What things are you most apt to see and hear? 
— to see and hear with satisfaction ? 

Alas! who among us will not confess, that the 
sights and sounds which tell most upon us, are those 
which appeal to sensations and associations con- 
nected with the animal life in us; the emotional 
soul, that thrills and beats on the impulse of the 
very appetites that stir the brutal tribes to passion? 
"What are the paintings which charm the eye ? Are 
they not those which come most home to the prin- 
ciple of animal life? Are they not those which 
bear upon the homely, natural processes of eating 
and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage? 



THE FINE ARTS. 195 

Are they not those which portray actions embody- 
ing and representing the most passionate energy 
that these animal instincts inspire ? 

And what is the poetry, what the music, that fas- 
cinates the ear, — especially the unsophisticated ear? 
The birth-song, the love-song, the war-song, the 
death-song ; any song of animal life ; any life-poem, 
— life-lyric, or life-epic; — any life-poem of any sort! 

"What, indeed, are the fine arts, even at their best, 
bnt attempts to rectify and spiritualize what is to 
pass, through the medium of the eyes and ears of 
the body, into the chamber within, — where the 
principle of the spiritual, as well as that of the 
animal life, has its seat? 

Painting, poetry, music, all seek to reach through 
the body, not the animal soul merely, with its sus- 
ceptibilities of animal sentiments and passions, but 
the intelligent spirit — the principle of pure thought. 
And in their highest efforts, they aspire to be the 
handmaids of the spirit of man, in its holiest com- 
munings with the Spirit of God. Hence we have 
devotional pictures, poems, psalms, hymns, and 
songs — all meant to be subservient and auxiliary to 
the higher spiritual life. And hence the danger as 
to all of them, of their ministering chiefly to the 
instincts and feelings of the natural life; and so 
ministering to these, that the sort of animal excite- 
ment or gratification which is occasioned, shall be 
mistaken for a real movement of the Spirit of God, 
inspiring and animating the renewed spirit in men. 
The sweetest music makes me, not merry, but sad, 
and as it would seem, devout. The finest represen- 



196 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

tation, as of the child Samuel, or the Baptist, or the 
Saviour, solemnizes me. My spirit in me is stirred 
or melted. 

But the music strikes a chord in that part of me, 
— let it be breast, or heart, or bowels, — which ani- 
mal feelings and passions move. The picture ap- 
peals to recollections and associations connected 
with the conditions of my animal life. I listen to 
the music; it charms my ear. I gaze on the pic- 
ture; it fascinates my eye. But I feel that I must 
beware. The impressions which, while mine is still 
a natural body, my ear and my eye receive and send 
in, are but too apt to be such as are congenial to 
the lower principle of animal life, rather than to 
the higher principle of spiritual thought. I cannot 
trust my present bodily frame as a provider of fit 
materials for my sanctified spiritual nature to feed 
on. I find that even when it professes and seems 
to be handing in and transmitting what is to nour- 
ish the spiritual life in me, it is catering for the 
fleshly soul, and pandering to its least offensive, but 
by no means its least dangerous, manifestations. 

Thus my natural body is not only inadequate, as 
representing and explaining me, so that I cannot, 
by means of it, express myself as a spiritual man. 
It is no less inadequate as representing and explain- 
ing the outer world to me. I see, as through a glass, 
darkly. I hear, as if a chaotic babel of sound were 
ringing in my ear. I cannot safely suffer my bodily 
senses, even in the highest and purest exercise of 
them, to minister to my spiritual life. I must re- 
gard with jealousy what appeals to me through the 



MAN THE STUDENT OF NATURE. 197 

eye, even when it is riveted on the purest heavenly- 
ideal that ever painter drew; and what appeals to 
me through the ear, even when it is ravished with 
loudest concord of heavenly harmony, or softest 
notes of "grave, sweet melody." 

But there is a spiritual body. What its senses 
are to be I cannot tell. How it is to receive 
impressions from without, and present these im- 
pressions to the spirit within, I know not. But 
this, at least, I may be bold to affirm. It will be 
true and faithful as that spirit's minister; and it 
will be apt and able too. It will bring the external 
world to bear upon what is spiritual in me, not on 
what is sentient and sensuous. It will lay the 
entire universe of God under contribution, not at 
all, in any sense or in any measure, to the lower 
principle of animal life and feeling, but wholly and 
exclusively to the higher principle of pure intelli- 
gence and divine thought. 

What a new aspect may all creation be expected 
to assume when thus viewed through the medium of 
a spiritual body ! What new mysteries of glory and 
beauty may break upon the astonished eye ! What 
new harmonies may fill the entranced and enrap- 
tured ear ! How may it, then, appear that there are 
indeed "more things in heaven and earth than are 
dreamed of in our philosophy!" 

What a prospect for the devout student of nature, 
the devout lover of nature ; — the devout admirer of 
her beauteous forms, the devout drinker in of her 
sweet sounds ! Here, in the natural body, you must 
lay an arrest on these tastes and studies of yours, 

17* 



198 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

refined and ennobling as they are. There is ever a 
risk of the objects with which they are conversant 
setting up the lower part of your nature against the 
higher; stimulating rather the affections and passions 
of the animal soul, than the aspirations of the spirit- 
ual life. But there will be no such risk then; no 
such need of caution. In that spiritual body, you 
may roam unchecked over all worlds, prying into all 
their secrets, taking your fill of all their treasures. 
No roving eye then to be restrained ! No itching 
ear then to be reproved ! No danger of excess in 
loving the creature then ! Through the organs and 
senses of that spiritual body all created things ad- 
dress themselves to the spirit in you, and to that alone. 
They cannot, therefore, be studied, or tasted, or rel- 
ished too much. They are all then felt to be con- 
genial to your highest spiritual life. They fit into 
it. They are its materials. Out of them is woven 
the everlasting song of praise, in which the glory of 
creation and the glory of redemption are combined : 
— " Thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory, and 
honor, and power, for thou hast created all things, 
and for thy pleasure they are and w T ere created. 
Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain and hast re- 
deemed us with thy blood. All thy works praise 
thee, Lord God Almighty, and thy saints bless 
thee." 

Lastly, in the third place : Besides being, on the 
one hand, an index or outlet by which the spirit in 
man expresses itself, and, on the other hand, an 
inlet or avenue by which things without reach it, the 



THE NATURAL BODY ON FOREIGN SERVICE. 199 

body is an instrument by which it works. The 
present body is so. Its various organs and mem- 
bers, internal and external, are the tools which the 
higher principle of spiritual intelligence and thought, 
as well as the lower principle of animal life, may and 
must use. The body is the spirit's engine or machine 
for moving the world. It is so, however, somewhat 
as if the higher spirit got the loan of it merely from 
the lower animal soul. It is to that lower animal 
soul that the body properly belongs. Primarily it is 
fitted for the uses of the animal life :— " Be fruitful 
and multiply;" "I have given you food." Such is 
the original law of man's creation in the body. And 
for compliance with that law the natural body is 
constructed. Hence it is naturally at the disposal 
of the lower principle of mere animal life, whose 
pleasure it executes and whose work it does,— very 
much as the fleshly body of a beast, or a fish, or a 
bird, executes the pleasure and does the work of the 
vital principle or living soul that animates it. "When 
it has to execute the pleasure and do the work of the 
higher principle of spiritual life, especially of the 
highest spiritual life, — the life of the Spirit of God 
in the spirit of man, — the natural body is, as one 
might say, on foreign service. It is hired out for a 
sort of occupation for which, in its original construc- 
tion, it was not specially or primarily designed. 

No wonder, therefore, that it should be found in 
such service, to be a cumbrous and clumsy instru- 
ment, an imperfect machine ; — an engine apt to go 
wrong, to break down and need repair, in the hands 
of the higher master-mind, which, as if by courtesy 



200 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

and upon sufferance, wields it. "No wonder that that 
higher master fails often to wield it to the best pur- 
pose. All the less wonder, since for such precarious 
use as he has of it, this higher master has to keep up 
a hard fight with the lower animal soul, whose ser- 
vant, the body as at present constituted, naturally is. 

But give to the spirit in man, — the spiritual prin- 
ciple, redeemed, renewed, quickened by the Spirit of 
God, — a body that it can call its own, and claim as 
its own; — absolutely and exclusively its own. Let 
it have a body, with nothing at all of that organiza- 
tion which fits the natural body for the functions 
of the animal life. Let it be wholly formed and 
fashioned with an eye to the uses of the life that is 
spiritual and divine. 

Oh, how then, by means of such a spiritual body, 
may the spirit in man, inspired by the Spirit of God, 
be able to realize its own highest ideal, and even 
God's highest ideal, of what is great and good? 

Sleepless, unfatigued, needing neither food nor 
rest; marrying and giving in marriage no more; 
made like unto the angels; — with no animal wants 
to provide for, no animal passions to gratify, no ani- 
mal weaknesses or wearinesses to yield to — how may 
the redeemed in glory, with those glorious spiritual 
bodies of theirs, be ever plying the glad and busy 
task of acting out the impulses of their own spiritual 
nature, and doing the pleasure of the Lord that 
bought them ! 

" They "are before the throne of God, and serve 
him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth 
on the throne dwells among them. They hunger not 



ALL SPIRITUAL AND IMMORTAL. 201 

nor thirst any more; neither does the sun light on 
them nor any heat. The Lamb which is in the midst 
of the throne feeds them, and leads them to foun- 
tains of living water; and God wipes away all tears 
from their eyes." 

The griefs and groans, as well as the wants and 
cravings, of which their natural body made them so 
sensitively susceptible, in a world of sin and sorrow, 
of change and death, all are over. "No such agitations 
can mar their joy, or hinder their work, in that sin- 
less, sorrowless, changeless, deathless state, where all 
is spiritual and all immortal. 

And when all is spiritual, and all immortal, what 
an opening is there for the spiritual and immortal 
soul, — possessed of a kindred body, and ushered into 
a congenial world ; — to express itself in communion 
with all holy intelligence, unembarrassed and un- 
clogged by any perishable chains ; to receive pure 
light from the light that shines all around in " the 
new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth 
righteousness ;" and to go forth, with strength pro- 
portioned to its own untiring aspirations, on the er- 
rands of God's holy righteousness and love, over all 
the realms of creation. 



DISCOURSE XIII. 

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last 
Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which 
is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterwards that which is 
spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is the 
Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : 
and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as 
we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of 
the heavenly. — 1 Corinthians xv. 45 — 49. 

HPHE two bodies, the natural and the spiritual, are 
-*- connected with the first Adam and the second 
Adam respectively. That is the teaching of these 
verses. The apostle is anxious to strengthen in the 
minds of those with whom he is reasoning, the con- 
viction that " there is a spiritual body" as well as a 
"natural body." 

Do not imagine that the body which you are here- 
after to receive is to be altogether like that which 
you have now; a body primarily and principally 
adapted to the lower principle of animal life that is 
in you ; fitted for animal functions and animal sen- 
sations and sensibilities. Consider, in the first place, 
how reasonable a thing it is to expect that, if you 
are partakers of a higher principle of life, — of living 
intelligence and thought ; — and, above all, if you are 
made partakers of a principle of life higher even 
than that, — the Spirit of life divine ; there shall be 
found for you a body suitable and corresponding. 



A LIVING SOUL — A QUICKENING SPIRIT. 203 

This is, surely, no improbable assumption. It ought 
not to be so, if you consider, secondly, how these 
different sorts of life come to you ; whence they 
spring and flow; from what sources or fountain- 
heads. The one life you have from " the first man 
Adam;" the other from "the last Adam" — Christ. 
And mark the essential difference between these two. 
" The first man Adam was made a living soul." So 
are we naturally in him. " The last Adam was made 
a quickening spirit." So we come to be by grace 
quickened in Christ. 

I. " The first man Adam was made a living soul." 
This statement of the apostle is a quotation, accord- 
ing to the Greek version of the Old Testament, from 
the second chapter of Genesis ; " The Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became 
a living soul." (ver. 7.) 

This is the second account given of the creation of 
man. The first account is contained in the opening 
chapter of Genesis. " And God said, Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness : and let them 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 
fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the 
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth 
upon. the earth." (ver. 26.) 

The two accounts present man in two distinct and 
contrasted points of view — in his relation to God who 
made him, on the one hand ; and in his relation to 
the earth, which he is to till, on the other. The one 
indicates his look and tendency upward and heaven- 



20 4 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

ward ; the other, his bias downward and earthward. 
The one brings out what, in a sense, he has in com- 
mon with God, in whose image and after whose like- 
ness he is made ; the other, what he has in common 
with the other animals that are made, like him, of 
the dust of the ground. Formed out of such mate- 
rials, made of the dust of the ground, man -has the 
breath of life breathed into his nostrils by him who 
formed and made him. And so he becomes, or is 
made, " a living soul." 

Such is the composition or constitution of the first 
man, as to his material frame, and as to the animal 
soul, or the principle of animal life, which quickens 
and moves it. That is, strictly speaking, the nat- 
ural and original make or fashion of the human 
animal. 

Like the other animals, he is simply a piece of or- 
ganized earthly matter, animated by the mysterious 
principle, or breath, of sentient and motive life. His 
organization is more perfect than theirs. He has the 
hand that feels and holds; he has the mouth that 
speaks ; which they have not. The instincts also of 
the natural life are more akin and allied to the rea- 
soning faculty in him than in them; although in 
them sagacity often rises well nigh into thought. 
Still his nature, — as a being " which the Lord God 
formed of the dust of the ground," and into whose 
" nostrils he breathed the breath of life," — is sub- 
stantially the same as theirs. He is, like them, an 
animal, a living soul. As such, he takes rank with 
" every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, 
and everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein 



THE FIRST ADAM "A LIVING SOUL." 205 

is life," or " a living soul." (Gen. i. 30, marginal 
reading.) So far lie and they alike are " living 
souls." 

True, a higher endowment, a nobler capacity, a 
better principle of life, belongs to him. He wears 
the image and likeness of God. 

But somehow it is as if something foreign and ad- 
ventitious were put upon him ; as if it were new 
wine put into an old bottle. The divine robe of 
glory and beauty does not sit naturally, easily, or 
gracefully on one who is but dust and ashes. The 
heavenly element does not find itself at home when 
it has to dwell in a cottage of clay; in the " earthly 
house of a tabernacle that may be dissolved." There 
is felt to be a palpable incongruity. 

And accordingly, who can doubt that if that first 
man Adam had but been faithful for a season ; if he 
had but been true to him whose image and likeness 
he bore ; true to the higher spirit of life in himself; 
— his day of trial, his period of probation, being well 
over ; — he would have undergone a change in his 
living bodily frame that would have brought it into 
harmony with his spiritual and nobler nature ? 

It could not be intended that, godlike in the spirit, 
he should be for ever merely animal in the flesh. 
There must have been a set time, when, for the di- 
vine spirit of life in him, there would have been 
found a bodily instrument and companion, more 
meet than what was first formed for him out of the 
dust of the ground ; and into that new body the 
breath of a purer vitality would have been breathed. 
And furnished with a frame no longer bound to the 
18 



206 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

functions of the animal life which he has been shar- 
ing with the brutes, but adapted to the loftiest as- 
pirations and activities of the spiritual life which he 
has in fellowship with God, he would have passed 
on to a paradise of higher spiritual joy than the in- 
nocent bliss of Eden ; and to higher spiritual so- 
ciety also, more congenial to his better nature than 
the most docile of the tribes he ruled in Eden could 
supply. 

Thus, had he not fallen, the first Aclam might 
have fared. And thus, doubtless, in due succession 
also, all the race would have fared. In that case, it 
might have been said of him, that he v came not " a 
living soul," but a living spirit; his material frame 
being now accommodated and assimilated, not to 
the lower " soulish" principle of the animal life, but 
to the higher principle of life spiritual and divine. 

Even in that case, however, he could not be said 
to become a life-giving or " quickening spirit." That 
honor belongs to the second Adam alone. At the 
best, the first Adam would have been only a receiver 
of that new spirituality, or spiritual vitality, in his 
body, which was to supersede and displace its orig- 
inal merely animal vitality. It would have been to 
him personally a gift of grace. And so it would 
have been also to every one of his posterity partak- 
ing in the benefit. It was not his to give. He 
never could have received it on such a footing as to 
possess the power or privilege of bestowing it upon 
others — the power and privilege of transmitting it 
to his seed. What he can transmit to them as they 
issue out of his loins, can be nothing better than 



lei 



THE LAST ADAM "A QUICKENING SPIRIT." 207 

that animal corporeity, which alone, by the birth- 
right of his original creation, is his own. 

And, alas ! now that he has sinned and fallen, he 
can transmit even that only in a vitiated condition, 
with all that is animal in it — its animal instincts, 
propensities, and passions — strengthened in the in- 
tensity of their natural antagonism to what is spirit- 
ual ; and with the superadded malignity of new 
corruption and carnality. To him you owe, from 
him you inherit, those "vile bodies," that with 
their animal tastes and tendencies seem so hopeless- 
ly at variance with your higher spiritual life. And 
if you hold still of that first Adam, you may well 
despair of ever having better. 

But is it so ? Have you not known the Second 
Adam ? Is not he your head now ? Is it not of 
him that you hold ? Then surely you may confi- 
dently look for all that, as regards corporeity, you 
can desire. For " the last Adam was made a quick- 
ening spirit." 

II. " The last Adam was made a quickening spi- 
rit." "When, and how? At his resurrection, and 
by his resurrection. It cannot be his incarnation 
that is here referred to. He was then made, he 
then became, — in the first Adam, and as the seed 
of the woman in the first Adam, — simply a "living 
soul." He was made in his incarnation what the 
first Adam was made in his creation. In respect of 
corporeity, so far as his bodily Irame, with its ani- 
mal soul or principle of animal life, was concerned, 
he became what the first Adam was before the fall. 



208 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

What he, the second Adam, had to do — as the word 
made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us, God manifest 
in the flesh — was exactly what the first Adam had 
to do, and failed to do ; — with this addition, that he 
had to undo what the first Adam did, to expiate the 
guilt of the sin which the first Adam brought into 
the world, and to procure the canceling of it for 
ever by his atoning death. But, along with that, 
taking upon him the form of a servant, being found 
in fashion as a man, the last Adam had to stand 
the temptation which the first Adam failed to stand, 
and to realize the obedience of which the first Adam 
fell short. 

And he does so as "a living soul;" — made, like 
the first Adam, a living soul. He takes the first 
Adam's living corporeity, his bodily vitality, as his 
own. As regards all that pertains to the animal 
nature, the body animated by the " soulish" princi- 
ple, or the principle of animal life, he becomes pre- 
cisely what the first man Adam was when he was 
first made. And in that character and capacity, he 
tries again the experiment in which the first Adam 
broke down. Made of a woman, made under the 
law, he comes into the place which the first Adam 
held when he "was made a living soul." 

Thus far, the last or second Adam is no life-giver, 
no quickener. He is a life-winner, a life-conqueror. 
The spirit, or spiritual life in him, — his own divine 
nature acting in harmony with the Spirit of the 
Father dwelling in his humanity — is occupied with 
the gaining of life, not the giving of it. As a liv- 
ing soul, — an organism, or organic earthly frame, 



WHAT THE FIRST ADAM MIGHT HAVE GAINED. 209 

animated by the breath of animal life, — he has to 
work ont what his divinity alone, and the Divine 
Spirit in him, could realize. 

He achieves the victory. Undoing, by his atoning 
sufferings and death, what the first Adam had done 
by his sin — accomplishing and fulfilling by his per- 
fect obedience that righteousness in which the first 
Adam failed — the last Adam comes forth at his 
resurrection in the new character of "a quickening 
spirit." 

But how is he a quickening spirit ? — not quick- 
ened merely, but quickening — not living only, but 
life-giving — not simply himself possessing spiritual 
life in the body, but imparting it to others ? 

"Would it not be enough that the second Adam 
should take the place which the first Adam, if he 
had stood, would have reached — that he should re- 
ceive, for himself individually, a spiritual corporeity 
— that his own physical and material frame should 
be refashioned or transformed, so as to be adapted 
to the uses, not of the animal, but of the spiritual 
economy? 

That would be much. That is probably all that 
the first Adam could have gained, even if he had 
retained his integrity. Life spiritual, in body as 
well as in spirit, he might have w r on for himself. 
But he could not have imparted it to others. The 
utmost issue of his success would have been the 
handing down of the constitution, bodily and spirit- 
ual, which he originally had, uncontaminated and 
unimpaired. He never could have been "a quicken- 
ing spirit." 

18* 



210 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

But the last Adam is so. There is in him a life, 
a principle of life, for the body as well as the 
spiritual part of man, that was not in the first 
Adam, and indeed could not be. For the second 
Adam is the Living One, "the Lord from heaven." 
In him, as he becomes incarnate, the spiritual na- 
ture, the spiritual life, is not grasped and reached 
from beneath. It comes down to him from above. 
He has a body prepared for him in the virgin's 
womb. It is a body of death so long as he lives 
here on the earth in the flesh. In it, as a body of 
death, he obeys, and suffers, and dies. But now 
the worst is over. And, lo ! he lives again in the 
body. He lives now as the second Adam. And he 
lives, not only to receive, but to give life, spiritual 
life, in the body. He is made, with reference to the 
whole nature of man, physical as well as spiritual, — 
a quickening spirit. 

For himself, Christ, in his resurrection, has the 
element or character of spirituality communicated 
to the lower and material, as well as the higher and 
mental, part of your human nature, which he took 
as his own. His natural body becomes a spiritual 
body. He is, as to his physical frame, quickened, 
as the first Adam would at some set time have been 
quickened had he not fallen ; spiritualized, as the 
first Adam would have been spiritualized. But 
more than that; he quickens you who are not now 
any longer in the first Adam, but in the second. 
He spiritualizes your physical frame. You are 
"like him, when you see him as he is." "He 
changes your vile body, that it may be fashioned 



WHAT THE LAST ADAM HAS TO GIVE. 211 

like unto liis glorious body, according to the work- 
ing whereby he is able even to subdue all things 
unto himself." ""When he appears, you appear 
with him in glory." 

Thus, as a quickening spirit, the second Adam, 
the Lord from heaven, dying for you and rising 
again, quickens spiritually your whole human na- 
ture, in all its parts. 

Look, then, if you have still any anxiety or doubt 
as to your future bodily condition — if you are still 
uneasy as to the kind of corporeity that may consist 
with your perfection in the heavenly state — look to 
this second Adam ! See him as he stands before you 
now, having fulfilled the conditions of life which the 
first Adam failed to fulfill, and having expiated, more- 
over, the guilt, and redressed the evil issue, of that 
failure. See the risen Saviour, the man Christ Je- 
sus, himself now possessing such a bodily nature, 
such a corporeal structure and organization, as the 
first Adam might have got had he stood the test. 
But not as the first Adam w r ould have had it, does 
the second Adam hold it. He is not merely quick- 
ened, but quickening ; he is not merely living, but 
life-giving. And it is with special reference to that 
very body of yours of which you complain as the 
body of this death, that the second Adam is a quick- 
ening spirit. 

What! Paul might say to the objectors or in- 
quirers whom he is meeting, Can you doubt that 
there is a spiritual as well as a natural body, when 
you think of the last Adam, who now stands to you 
in place of the first? Is it not given to him, as the 



212 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Son, to have life in himself? Is it not given to him 
also, as the Son, to quicken whom he will ? He is 
not in the position of the first Adam, a mere crea- 
ture, winning his way to life in the body. He is the 
Son, who liveth evermore. True ; in the body he 
consents to pay the forfeit of that life which the first 
Adam lost. But he liveth still. He wins the life of 
which the first Adam fell short. He wins it as the 
living one, having life in himself, for this very end, 
that he may quicken whom he will. 

And this quickening, is it not a quickening to 
spiritual life ? — not to that life which consists in 
your performance of animal functions and your 
compliance with animal cravings, but to that life 
which is exercised in the higher fellowship of heaven, 
and which the atmosphere of heaven sustains? And 
can you doubt that it is a quickening which will per- 
vade your whole nature ; and reach your bodily 
frames, allied as they now are naturally to earth, 
as well as the spirit in you that claims kindred, 
through grace, with heaven? Surely, if the first 
Adam, as a living soul, transmits to you that bodily 
frame, corrupt and perishable, which he got out of 
the dust of the ground of which he was formed, — the 
second Adam, as a quickening spirit, may make yon 
partakers of that living spiritual corporeity which 
belongs to him now, as not only having life in him- 
self, in his entire person, but able also to be author 
of the same to you. 

Thus Christ, the last Adam, the second representa- 
tive and the head of humanity, stands contrasted 



THE NATURAL BEFORE THE SPIRITUAL. 213 

with the first, as the giver of life spiritual, and the 
giver of it to the whole man, to man in the body. 
There must, therefore, be a spiritual body. It is no 
devout imagination to speak of such a thing. Nay, 
more, the apostle apparently looks upon the spiritual 
body as the fitting sequel, and, as it were, comple- 
ment of the natural. That the natural body should, 
in the order of time, be first, is reasonable; it is what 
might have been expected. But equally, as it would 
seem, might it have been anticipated that the na- 
tural would in due course rise and effloresce into 
the spiritual. 

In the first place, it is reasonable, and quite what 
might have been expected, that in the order of time 
the natural body should take precedence of the spi- 
ritual. " Howbeit that was not first which is spirit- 
ual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that 
which is spiritual." This arrangement approves it- 
self to the reflecting mind. It is according to the 
analogy of the whole procedure of God in creation 
and providence. The law of progress pervades and 
governs all divine operations. There is a true as 
well as a false theory of development. Consider 
the order in which God works as the maker of all 
things. Beginning with inert matter, called into 
being out of nothing by his word, how does he give 
birth to successive forms of life in the vegetable and 
animal world, rising gradually from the lowest type 
of organization, each new formation being an ad- 
vance upon the preceding, until at last man appears 
upon the stage. When he does appear, it is fitting 



214 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

and according to order and analogy that he should 
first he seen with a simply natural hody; — possessed 
of a material frame altogether similar to the mate- 
rial frames possessed hy the animal tribes of which 
he is the crown and head. But there is something 
in him which indicates that such a sort of body will 
not suit him in perpetuity. That he should have it 
at first, and continue to have it for a season, is right 
and proper. A bodily structure with animal vitality 
— like that of the brutes — having superadded to it a 
higher spiritual principle of life, is the right and 
proper kind of creature, if we may so speak, to come 
forth from the Creator's hand, at the precise stage 
of creation's progress at which man is made. But 
that he should have such a body for ever, — that he 
should never have one better, or one more suited to 
his higher nature, — this, even on grounds of reason, 
might be pronounced beforehand to be improbable. 
Analogy — the analogy of the law of progress and 
development in all the works of God— might of it- 
self raise a brighter and higher hope. 

It does so all the rather when you consider, sec- 
ondly, who and what the two heads respectively are 
on whom, in the two states of nature and of grace, 
you depend, and from whom, in these successive 
states, } 7 ou derive your life. " The first man is of 
the earth, earthy : the second man is the Lord from 
heaven." 

Look at the first man. He appears, as it were, 
rising out of earth ; a living creature, like the liviDg 
creatures that have sprung up before him ; fashioned 



THE SECOND MAN THE LORD FROM HEAVEN. 215 

out of the same dusty materials, animated by the 
same mysterious vital breath. In some respects he 
has the advantage ; in others, they. If his erect 
stature, apprehensive hand, and speaking mouth, 
raise him as an animal above them, can he match 
the lion in strength, the roe in speed, or the eagle 
winging his lofty flight in the eye of the mid-day 
sun ? At all events, like them, he is of the earth, 
earthy. True, he has a higher nature, allying him 
to God. But that comes, as one might almost say, 
by an after-thought ; or at least it is a graft from hea- 
ven on an earthy stem. And the graft and the stem 
do not take kindly to one another. The man is still 
of the earth, earthy. And if your only life is what 
you have through him, or from him, by descent from 
his loins ; if he is the only father that begetteth you, 
and his the only family that you belong to — then 
you could indeed look for no other sort of bodily 
frame and vital breath than his. For "as is the 
earthy, such are they that are earthy." 

But lo ! the second man ! Eot earthborn he ! 
Not sprung from earth ! He is the Lord from heaven ! 
His origin, when he appears as man, is not the dust 
of the ground, but the highest heavens ! 

But does he not, as man, take the very physical 
frame which the first man had ? Has he not, as born 
of a woman, the same corporeal and animal nature 
that Adam originally had ? 

Yes ! That he may occupy Adam's place and 
undo Adam's work, he must assume, for a little, 
Adam's earthly corporeity. But he cannot retain 
it ; he cannot keep it long ; for he is the Lord from 
heaven. He may put on Adam's earthy garment of 



216 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

a natural body till he has redressed the wrong and 
repaired the evil of Adam's miserable fall. But 
when that end is accomplished he puts it off. He 
must have another sort of body to wear as the Lord 
from heaven, when, his work on earth being finish- 
ed, he passes into heaven again ; a body, a corporei- 
ty, a living material organization, in which even the 
Lord from heaven, now risen and ascended to be the 
Lord in heaven, may feel himself, as it were, at liber- 
ty and at home for ever ! 

Ah ! then, if your life is got from him — if you are 
begotten again in him — if you belong to the new 
family of which he is the head — if it be his blood 
that now runs in your veins, and his spirit that now 
quickens you — can you doubt that it will be yours to 
share his corporeity, his bodily nature, at the last ? 
It must be so. For " as is the heavenly, such are 
they also that are heavenly." 

Yes ! beloved brethren, let us be very sure, if in- 
deed we are in him, that, "as we have borne the 
image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of 
the heavenly." He himself, for you, bore the image 
of the earthy ; bore it to the utmost depths of humil- 
iation, degradation, suffering, and shame, that his 
bearing it could by possibility imply. But he did 
so that you might bear the image of the heavenly. 
He took that mortal frame, which you receive by in- 
heritance and by descent from Adam. He took it 
corruptible, dishonored, weak, and vile. But now 
that he has left the tomb, in which for a time that 
body lay, it is no longer the same kind of body that 
he has. It is, it must of necessity be, a body suited 
to him as the Lord from heaven ; a body fit to be 



WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM. 217 

worn by him as the Lord in heaven, and that for 
evermore. Such is his body now; and such will 
your bodies hereafter be, for " as is the heavenly, 
such are they also that are heavenly ; and as we have 
borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear 
the image of the heavenly." 

What would you have more ? "What brighter 
hope would the most transcendental ultra-spiritual- 
ist among you desire to have ? Is it not a better 
hope than the dreamy notion of a sort of incorporeal 
and almost impersonal immortality — of the spiritual 
part in you being extricated from the material, and 
sublimated, as it were, into affinity with the very 
essence of God, nay, lost and absorbed in the divine 
fullness itself? As a refuge in trouble, as a motive 
to action, — for assuaging the grief of parting when 
friends fall asleep, and nerving your whole manhood 
for the battle of life, — is a belief like that, impalp- 
able and ideal, — at all to be compared with the 
assurance that you are yourselves, — your whole 
selves, — to be as Christ is; each of you individually 
to be identified as he was identified when he rose ; 
and all of you, with as real and full separate person- 
alities as you now have on earth, and he has in 
heaven, to bear his heavenly image and behold his 
heavenly glory! "Beloved, now are we the sons of 
God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : 
but we know that, w T hen he shall appear, we shall be 
like him ; for we shall see him as he is. And every 
man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, 
even as he is pure." 
19 



DISCOURSE XIV. 

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show 
you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a 
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet 
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be 
changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mor- 
tal must put on immortality. — 1 Corinthians xv. 50-53. 

npHIS is the apostle's closing argument, addressed 
-*- to those objectors who are supposed to have 
raised the question, "How are the dead raised up? 
and with what body do they come ?" They chose to 
assume, that if saints in glory are to have bodies at 
all, if they are to have a bodily nature, it must be 
such as that under which believers now groan ; gross, 
sensuous, carnal, animal. And, how, they asked, will 
that consist with the high spiritual perfection of the 
heavenly state ? Will glorified spirits be at home in 
such natural bodies ? 

The apostle has met this question in several ways. 
He has proved, from the analogy of seed-corn, or 
"bare grain," springing up, not what it is when it is 
sown, but something quite different, even a ripe and 
golden shock of wheat, that the presumption is all 
in favor of the body which is buried undergoing a 
great change when it rises from the grave again. 
He has pointed out instances, among earthly and 
heavenly bodies, of the vast variety of forms and 



RECAPITULATION. 219 

fashions and organizations that matter may he made 
to assume; to show the unreasonableness of the idea 
that the great Creator, in whose hands it is seen to 
be so plastic, cannot mould it, in the risen bodies of 
his people, into harmony with their spiritual perfec- 
tion and unchanging glory. He has gone farther, 
and plainly drawn the contrasted pictures of the 
present and the future bodies; the one being cor- 
rupt, dishonored, weak; the other incorruptible, 
glorious, powerful ; the one being naturally adapted 
to the functions of the natural and animal life ; the 
other being spiritual, fitted to be the apt minister of 
the spiritual life, which the Spirit of God infuses into 
the spirit of man. "There is," he says, "a natural 
body, and there is a spiritual body." 

There is a natural body; " according as it is writ- 
ten, the first man Adam was made a living soul." 
Formed out of the dust of the ground, and having 
the breath of life breathed into his nostrils, he be- 
came an animal, like the animals which the earth 
was commanded to bring forth before him. He bore 
indeed the image and likeness of God. But he bore 
it, as it were, uneasily, in that animal corporeity, that 
natural living body, which he shared in common 
with the brutes. Had he stood, he might have 
purchased for himself a better degree ; the natural 
might have become a spiritual body. But he fell. 
And the nature, the animal and corporeal nature, 
which he transmits to us, is worse than he origin- 
ally had himself. There is, however, another head 
and representative of humanity; the last Adam. He, 
like the first Adam, appears at first "as a living 



220 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

soul." In his incarnation, he comes forth the same, 
as to his bodily and animal nature, that the first 
Adam was when he was made. He fulfills the 
righteousness in which the first Adam failed. He 
undoes the mischief which the first Adam did. He 
obeys, and suffers, and dies. And rising again, be- 
ing made perfect through suffering, he becomes the 
author of eternal salvation to all them that obey 
him. He "is made a quickening spirit." He is 
possessed, in his whole human nature, not merely 
of animal life but of spiritual life. And he has this 
life in himself that he may quicken whom he will. 
He is one who quickens spiritually. And he quick- 
ens spiritually the whole man. The body becomes 
spiritual in his hands. The natural passes into the 
spiritual ; first in the person of the last Adam, the 
risen Saviour; and ultimately in the persons of all 
that are his. For he is now no longer merely " a 
living soul," as the first Adam was. "Declared to 
be the Son of God, with power, by his resurrection 
from the dead," he is become "a quickening spirit." 
All this is in due order; in fitting sequence. The 
natural comes first. By all means. It is right it 
should be so. The first man is of the earth, earthy. 
He is earth-born and earth-like, as are the other 
animals ; only, in respect of the image of God 
stamped upon him, he is a far higher type of the 
earthly, and has in him an earnest of the heavenly 
superseding the earthly — the natural passing into 
the spiritual. Such rise in the scale of being he 
might have got had he not missed it by his sin. 
But there is a second man. And he is not of the 



THE NECESSITY OF THE CASE. 221 

earth, earthy. He is "the Lord from heaven." The 
humanity which he assumes, not as springing from 
earth, but in great and gracious condescension com- 
ing from heaven, may be for a time such, in respect 
of its bodily life and animal corporeity, as the first 
man had when he was made " a living soul." It 
may be so until he has finished the work which the 
first man's fall entailed upon him. But it cannot 
be so longer. The body, the corporeal frame, the 
bodily human nature, which the Lord from heaven, 
now the Lord in heaven, is to wear for ever, must 
be such as is meet, not for the earthly mode and 
manner of existence, to which for a little he stooped, 
but for his own endless divine life and eternal hea- 
venly home. Oh ! then, is it not enough for you to 
be assured that "as is the heavenly, such are they 
also that are heavenly ; — and that as we have borne 
the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the 
image of the heavenly." 

Nay, you may be doubly assured on this point. 
Your assurance may be based, not merely on the 
word of promise, but on the very nature and neces- 
sity of the case. It is not merely — it shall be so ; 
but — it must be so. For there is an inexorable law 
to be announced here, which really ends all ques- 
tioning upon the subject. It is a law universally^, 
applicable. And, like the oath of God, confirming 
his word by an appeal to his nature, this law of na- 
ture and necessity ends all strife and doubt. 

The law in question is asserted in the fiftieth 
verse. Its application is described in the verses 
which follow. 

19* 



222 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

It is asserted in verse 50, " Now this I say, bre- 
thren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- 
dom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incor- 
ruption." The two clauses of this verse are cer- 
tainly parallel. The same thought is expressed in 
two different ways, according to Hebrew usage, so 
that the second illustrates or explains the first. Or 
if there is any shade of difference, it can only be 
this, that the second clause gives the reason of the 
statement made in the first. Flesh and blood is 
corruption. The kingdom of God is incorruption. 
Corruption cannot inherit incorruption. Therefore 
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 
So the argument may be put in strict form. 

The two main propositions or statements, there- 
fore, contained in this verse, are the following : the 
first — Flesh and blood is corruption ; the second — 
The kingdom of God is incorruption. 

I. Flesh and blood is corruption. " Corruption,'* 
in the second clause of the verse, qualifies, or ex- 
plains, or characterizes "flesh and blood" in the 
first clause. But corruption must not be understood 
here in a moral or spiritual point of view. Such a 
sense would not be in point or to the purpose, as 
regards the apostle's reasoning. There is no refer- 
ence to the degradation and defilement of man's 
physical nature which sin effects, or which the fall 
has wrought. To say that bodies corrupted by sin 
or by the fall cannot enter heaven, would be simply 
an irrelevant truism, and would be held to be so by 
the parties with whom Paul is dealing. It is the 



FLESH AND BLOOD. 223 

admission, or the assertion, that flesh and blood, 
even in its best estate, is corruption, and cannot 
therefore inherit incorruption, which alone meets 
their view fairly, and lays the foundation for the in- 
ference or conclusion that what is composed of flesh 
and blood must be changed into something better. 
The corruption, then, here spoken of, is not an evil 
quality or effect superinduced on the bodily frame 
by sin ; it is the essential property of flesh and blood 
as originally made. 

This interpretation maybe still further confirmed 
by a survey of the passages in the New Testament 
in which the phrase, flesh and blood, occurs. These 
are four in number. 

1. Matthew xvi. 17. Our Lord, acknowledging 
Peter's prompt confession, in his own name and in 
that of his fellow apostles, of their common faith 
in him — " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv- 
ing God," "answered and said unto him, Blessed 
art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath 
not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is 
in heaven." 

2. Galatians i. 15 — 17. Paul, "certifying" the 
Galatians that "the Gospel which is preached by 
him is not after man;" inasmuch as he "neither 
received it of man, neither was he taught it, but by 
the revelation of Jesus Christ" — first refers to his 
former manner of life, and then adds, "But when 
it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's 
womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son 
in me, that I might preach him among the heathen ; 
immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood ; 



224 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were 
apostles before me." 

3. Ephesians vi. 11, 12. The inspired writer thus 
describes the Christian conflict — " Put on the whole 
armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against 
the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against 
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against 
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this 
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." 

4. Hebrews ii. 14. Speaking of the human na- 
ture which Christ assumed, the apostle says — "For- 
asmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh 
and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the 
same ; that through death he might destroy him 
that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; and 
deliver" those whom he keeps in "bondage." 

Such are the uses of this phrase, flesh and blood, 
in the New Testament. And if we connect these 
uses of it with the proposition now under consider- 
ation, — that flesh and blood is corruption ; or in 
other words, that the reason why flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God, is because flesh 
and blood is corruption, — we may be satisfied that 
the corruption ascribed to it is the characteristic of 
the body, not in its worst state only, but even in its 
best : and we may also discover, at least in part, the 
grounds on which the apostle proceeds when he as- 
serts, not only the actual fact, but even the absolute 
necessity, of there being a change in the structure 
of the body, and in the condition of its life, before 
it can be fitted for the atmosphere of the heavenly 
world. 



PARTIAL KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 225 

The four passages now quoted may evidently be 
reduced to three. 

1. The first two (Matt. xvi. 17, and Gal. i. 15, 16) 
may properly be taken together. "When Paul says, "I 
conferred not with flesh and blood," it can scarcely 
admit of a doubt that he has in his mind the Lord's 
own w6rds to Peter, "Flesh and blood hath not re- 
vealed it unto thee, but my Father which is heaven." 
On both occasions, the expression is used to dispar- 
age human nature in its present state; to call in 
question, or rather deny, its capacity of apprehend- 
ing what is divine. The true knowledge of the Son of 
God must come, not from flesh and blood, but from 
the Father. Man, in his existing bodily condition, 
cannot originate it. Nay, more, — man in his exist- 
ing bodily condition, cannot adequately comprehend 
or communicate it. These are two important truths ; 
the one implied in what the Lord says to Peter, the 
other in what Paul says of himself. Peter's con- 
fession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God," is the result, not of a discovery made by 
mortal man on the earth, but of a revelation from 
his Father in heaven. Paul rejoices in his having 
received the same revelation, not at second hand, 
through the intervention of mortal man, but imme- 
diately and directly from God himself. He received 
it, therefore, in its divine simplicity and unity, com- 
plete and entire, not broken up, as it must neces- 
sarily more or less be, when the agency of mortal 
men, even inspired mortal men, is employed. Now 
we know in part. Our knowledge at the best is 
partial and fragmentary. We possess pieces or bits 



226 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

of knowledge, out of which we vainly strive to make 
up one whole. And one reason may be, that this 
flesh and blood of ours, this body, by means of 
whose organism, inner and outer, we receive and 
work up, or, as it were, manipulate our knowledge, 
is not itself one and indivisible, but made up of 
divers particles of dust, and so resolvable into dust 
again. 

Flesh and blood, then — man in this corrupt or 
perishable body — cannot perfectly know, or know 
so as perfectly to reveal, God and the Son of God. 
Apart altogether from any effect wrought on it by 
sin ; for there is no reference here to moral corrup- 
tion ; in respect merely of its perishable nature, as 
being composed of earthy particles into which it 
may be dissolved — the body, as it now is, neces- 
sarily limits and renders fragmentary my knowledge 
of the Godhead. For "who can by searching find 
out God? who can find out the Almighty unto per- 
fection?" 

2. But this flesh and blood, this present bodily 
organization, not only negatively, as it were, limits 
— it positively obstructs and hinders my knowledge. 
It is, as regards that about it which makes it perish- 
able, the antagonist of the divine life in me. As 
such, I have to wrestle against it. 

So the apostle teaches in Ephesians vi. 12. Other 
and more formidable adversaries, meeting me even 
in the heavenly places, the apostle warns me that I 
must lay my account with having to face. But he 
takes it for granted that I must, at all events, "wres- 
tle against flesh and blood." Nor is this to be under- 



WRESTLING AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD. 227 

stood exclusively, perhaps not even principally, of 
other men in the body coming to assail and tempt 
me. Against myself, in the body, I may well be put 
upon my guard. For my present material frame, 
the flesh and blood which I now have, even in its 
best state, is adverse to the cultivation of the divine 
and spiritual life. 

Was it not so in paradise ? Was it not proved to 
be so when, — artfully reaching, through the lower 
tendencies of her bodily nature, her higher powers 
of reason, — the tempter prevailed over the innocence 
of our mother Eve, and awakened in her the lust of 
the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life? 
There was no taint or stain of moral corruption in 
man's nature then. But his material frame was 
liable to dissolution. It had hid in it the seed of 
possible decay, which sin ripened into actual death. 
And this quality, if not of corruption, at least of 
corruptibility, in respect of which, being made of 
dust, it might return or be reduced to dust again, 
imparted to it a character, not only not in harmony, 
but apt to be in conflict, with the spirit's lofty and 
adoring worship of the Incorruptible and Eternal. 
Even then, man was called, in a sense, to wrestle 
against flesh and blood. 

And so still, when you, in your fallen state, are 
called to wrestle against flesh and blood, it is of vast 
practical importance to remember, that it is not 
merely its acquired moral corruption, but its origi- 
nal natural corruptibility also, that makes it dan- 
gerous to your spirituality of mind. You are not 
merely to keep in view, in your treatment of your 



228 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

body, the evil taint which, your lower animal nature 
has got by descent from fallen parents. You are to 
take into account also its inherent vice or imperfec- 
tion — its perishable nature — that property, allying 
it to the dust of this lower earth, which is in obvious 
contrast to the imperishable life of heaven. It is 
not merely against the positively sinful movements 
of flesh and blood that you are to watch and wrestle, 
but against flesh and blood itself. It was not the 
workings of evil in his lower animal nature that the 
apostle had in his view, but that lower nature itself, 
when he said, " I keep under my body, and bring it 
into subjection : lest that by any means, when I have 
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." 
3. The last passage quoted above brings out yet 
a third element of antagonism to the kingdom of 
God attaching to flesh and blood. Besides being a 
disqualification for the perfect knowledge of God 
and the Son of God, and the antithesis or antagonist 
of the higher life of the divine spirit in man ; flesh 
and blood — this animated material frame as now 
constituted — labors under this additional disad- 
vantage and disability, that it has become actually 
mortal. On account of sin, it is suffered to die ; left 
here, it will, it must die. It is doomed actually to 
undergo that process of dissolution, of which its 
earthly composition, its being formed out of the 
dust, made it from the first susceptible. Death is 
not now a possible event that may be shunned, but 
a certain and inevitable fate. Remaining on the 
earth unchanged, flesh and blood is sure to decay 
and die. The sentence on guilty man, "dust thou 



MORTALITY OF THE BODY. 2?9 

art, and unto dust shalt thou return," takes full and 
universal effect. "His breath goeth forth; he re- 
turn eth to his earth." 

Hence, "Forasmuch as the children are partakers 
of flesh and blood, the Son also himself likewise 
took part of the same ; that through death he might 
destroy him that had the power of death, that is, 
the devil." It was because it was under the sen- 
tence of death that he took part of it. The living 
bodily frame which he assumed was identical with 
ours. In his case, by his own consent, death in- 
vaded and subdued it precisely as he does in our 
case, whether we consent or not. In him, as in us, 
flesh and blood dies. 

Now, put these several considerations together, 
and see how thoroughly flesh and blood is identified 
with corruption. Corruption is its characteristic. 
Corruption is its distinguishing attribute ; not, I 
again remind you, moral pollution ; but if we may 
so speak, physical divisibility, liability to be broken 
up into parts, dissolved or resolved into particles of 
dust. That is corruption ; and that is flesh and 
blood. And see how this characteristic of flesh and 
blood unfits it for adequately bearing part in the 
higher spiritual life, of which, nevertheless, it is the 
necessary minister here below. For it is in the 
body, and by means of the body, that you live now 
in the spirit. But how imperfectly can the spiritual 
life be realized in such a body of corruption ! 

Thus, in the first place, while I have to " say to 
corruption, Thou art my father ; to the worm, Thou 
art my mother and my sister," — I cannot, through 
20 



230 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the loop-holes of this veil of dust, get a full sight 
of God or of the Son of God. Lines and angles, 
as it were, I perceive here and there, as on a broken 
glass on which his shadow partly falls. But the 
circle, the full orb of his all-embracing perfection 
and glory, I strive in vain to see. His works, even 
dimly, and in a fragmentary way discerned, are 
great and marvellous. But I feel with Job — "Lo, 
these are parts of his ways. But how little a por- 
tion is heard of him ? The thunder of his power, 
who can understand?" 

Then again, secondly, how uncertain a comrade 
of the spirit in me do I find this animal body of 
mine to be ! how apt to become a rival or a foe ! 
Because corruption is its attribute, because liability 
to dissolution is its characteristic, it is incessantly 
demanding what is needful to prevent it from being 
dissolved. It asks rest, refreshment, recreation. It 
has a right to ask them, and it is at your peril if you 
refuse ; it is your sin. But this very need, — or 
rather, the corruption, the liability to dissolution, 
the perishable nature of the animal body, that which 
causes or occasions the need, — sets up flesh and 
blood as not an ally to be trusted, but an antagonist 
against which the spiritual man has to watch and 
wrestle ; — to watch and wrestle evermore. 

And above all, thirdly, there is " death in the 
pot.*' Flesh and blood is doomed to die. With 
that prospect before me, I cannot taste the full bless- 
edness of the spiritual life. This is the fatal draw- 
back on the happiness of the spiritual man here on 
the earth. For even to him death is formidable. 



SUBJECTION TO VANITY. 231 

To die is an awful thing. That I have to die is ever 
to me a solemn thought. I might struggle on with 
this flesh and "blood of mine, groping after God. I 
might wrestle on against this flesh and blood of 
mine, keeping it in subjection. The prolonged con- 
tinuance, indefinitely, of my present spiritual aspi- 
rations, and present spiritual contendings, in my 
present bodily organization as it now always works 
in me, — excepting only rare and abnormal expe- 
riences of holy rapture, — might be tolerable. But 
corruption is certain death. And the fear of death 
keeps even spiritual men all their lifetime, if not 
subject to bondage, yet at least subject to vanity. 
"Verily, every man at his best estate is vanity." 
With the prospect of death before me, I can scarcely 
be said really to live. To have death always in my 
eye, is to have a dark shadow always lowering over 
the brightest light and best life of my soul. 

II. So much for the first proposition. Flesh and 
blood is corruption. The second is the antithesis of 
it. The kingdom of God is incorruption. It is a 
state, or condition of things, in which there is no- 
thing destructible, nothing perishable, no corruption. 
What it is positively is not here said. The kingdom 
of God, the heavenly world, — in a word, heaven, — 
is not here described. The elements which enter 
into its pure and holy joy are not specified. One 
only feature of its felicity is indicated. It is identi- 
fied with incorruption. Flesh and blood is corrupt- 
ible ; — the kingdom of God is incorruptible. This 
is a negative commendation. It tells what the king- 



232 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

dom of God is not, rather than what it is. But how 
much may a mere negation imply ! 

Reversing the order under the previous head, let 
us notice three particulars comprehended in it. 

1. Death is out of the question. In that kingdom 
of God there is nothing destructible ; nothing liable 
to decay or dissolution. It is itself a reign of right- 
eousness and peace that knows no interruption or 
revolution ; no change but only that of progressive 
advancement, without limit and without end. No 
abrupt shock or slow siege of the king of terrors 
can mar or damp its holy joy. 

2. Hence, in that kingdom of God there can be 
no room or occasion for such arrangements as are 
here necessary to stave off death. If the kingdom 
of God is incorruption, in the sense of there being 
in it no more death, it must be so also in the sense 
of there being no more in it any deathward ten- 
dency, needing to be counteracted by carnal or cor- 
poreal appliances. There is no death. There is no 
liability to death. There is therefore no scope or 
place for those animal functions that are now exer- 
cised here, in stemming the tide, and repairing the 
waste, of that liability to death which characterizes 
all life in this present world. In that kingdom there 
is no necessity to be ever using means for keeping 
death at arm's length. 

3. Hence, farther, as in that kingdom of God 
there can be no death to be kept at arm's length or 
at bay, by means of acts and offices not favorable, 
but rather adverse to the spiritual life, so there can 
be nothing to intercept, or obscure, or break in 



THE KINGDOM OF GfOD INCORRUPTION. 233 

pieces, the beatific vision of God and the Son of 
God. To see God is the heavenly blessedness of 
the pure in heart. To see Christ as he is, is the 
hope of the children of God. The perfection of 
that state which is called the kingdom of God, is 
that there we shall know even as we are known. 
There can be nothing broken or fragmentary in our 
knowledge of God there. There is no such thing 
as knowing in part there. There is no analyzing or 
compounding of God there ; no analyzing of him, 
as if he were a heap or bundle of attributes to be 
assorted ; no compounding of him, as if he were to 
be made up of the materials of our own spiritual 
consciousness. All that sort of knowledge of God 
savors of corruption. It is all partial, imperfect, 
like what we see when we look through, or look into, 
a broken glass. 

Thus the kingdom of God is incorruption, in the 
first place, in respect of its immunity and exemption 
from the intrusion of death, and the fear of death ; 
secondly, in respect of its independence of those 
means and appliances of a bodily sort, which a con- 
dition of mortality renders necessary; and, in the 
third place, in respect of its adaptation for the pure 
and bright vision, the clear, unbroken, and un- 
clouded sight and knowledge of the Holy One — 
not of parts of his works and ways only, but of 
himself and of his full-orbed glory in the face of 
his Son. This last is the crowning joy and glory of 
heaven. And it grows out of the other two. First, 
— 'No death; no liability to death; no possibility of 
death; no susceptibility of division, dissolution, or 

• 20* 



234 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

decay. Next, — No machinery or system of animal 
organism working merely to counteract the death- 
ward tendency, and keep life agoing in spite of it ; 
working, therefore, often in opposition to the higher 
life of the spirit. Lastly, — No looking out on God 
as through the clefts of a rock, or from behind a 
hedge, admitting only some scattered rays of his 
majesty. The kingdom of God is incorruption. 
For (1.) It knows nothing of death. (2.) It knows 
nothing of what may be called life in death. And 
(3.) It knows nothing of the hinderance which mor- 
tality, and the strife or struggle against mortality, 
interpose, in the way of a clear and calm insight 
into the bosom of the everlasting Father, in which 
the Son dwelleth evermore. 

Thus diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to 
one another are these two things : flesh and blood, 
which is corruption, and the kingdom of God, which 
is incorruption. Thus conclusively may it be estab- 
lished that the one cannot inherit the other. The 
eternal and exceeding weight of glory which awaits 
you in the heavenly state, these frail and mortal 
bodies of yours could not sustain. Undergoing, as 
they do, alteration every moment — wasting and hav- 
ing the waste repaired — subject to a constant flux, 
as it were, and flow of the earthly particles of which 
they are composed — liable always and at any time 
to death, and only staving off that calamity by un- 
ceasing attention to their animal wants, and unceas- 
ing care to guard them from the harm that threatens 
them on every side — these material frames would 



I SHOW YOU A MYSTERY. 235 

not be at home, they would be out of place, in that 
heaven where no change can come, where eternal 
peace reigns. A mortal body in that immortal 
world would be an incongruity, an anomaly, shock- 
ing and revolting to all intelligences. It is, in fact, 
a plain contradiction in terms. It is simply impos- 
sible for flesh and blood to inherit the kingdom of 
God— for corruption to inherit incorruption. 

But how, then, some may say, how are those to 
enter heaven who are found alive at the ]ast day? 
This is a natural and fitting question, at the present 
stage of his argument ; and as such the apostle goes 
on to meet it — "Behold, I show you a mystery; 
we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the 
dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be 
changed." 

It is not a mystery, in our modern sense of the 
term, that the apostle here says that he shows you. 
It is a plain enough fact or doctrine that he states ; 
a fact or doctrine easily intelligible, and having 
nothing of what we would call mystery about it. 
What he means is simply that it is a revelation ; a 
truth which could be known only by a discovery or 
communication from above. I show you a mystery, 
I announce to you a revelation from God, to the 
effect that all are not to die. But all are to be 
changed. All are to undergo the change needed 
to transform the natural body into a spiritual. 

For death, with a resurrection following, is not 



236 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the only way of effecting that change. Had sin not 
entered into our world, the change would doubtless 
have been otherwise brought about. Even since, 
on account of sin, death has come to be the univer- 
sal law of our being, there have been signal excep- 
tions. Enoch and Elijah were surely changed when 
they were translated without tasting death. They 
did not carry natural, but spiritual, bodies with 
them when they passed into the heavens. What 
happened to them, will happen to the saints who 
are alive on the earth when the resurrection morn- 
ing comes. They will not be left behind, when the 
dead are raised, to fill their vacant graves, and crowd 
the world again with charnel-houses. ]STo. The face 
of the earth is to be renewed. It can no longer be 
a golgotha, a place of skulls; — a receptacle for car- 
casses rotting in corruption. It will have got rid of 
the accumulated dust of old generations to little 
purpose, if the dust of new generations is to mar its 
renovated beauty. Men cannot, therefore, be suf- 
fered to die and be buried in it any more. Even 
the saints of God can no longer be allowed to lay 
their bones in it. Earth refuses to hold any more 
even the monuments of the just. If they need to 
have their natural bodies converted into spiritual 
bodies, it must be by some other process than that 
of a death, a burial, and a resurrection. And so it 
shall be. "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall 
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : 
for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 



"we which are alive." 237 

And what a re-union will there then be ! "What a 
meeting between the dead who are raised and the 
living who are changed ! First, w r hat a surprise for 
the living themselves ; — for us living ones ; — as Paul 
naturally speaks, realizing the event as now at hand.* 

* There is a perverse tendency in certain quarters, to twist this 
way of speaking about the second advent into a proof that the apos- 
tles fell into a mistake on the subject, — the mistake of imagining that 
that event was to happen in their own day. This is a favorite theme 
with some who would fain convict the sacred writers of error, and so 
impeach their inspiration and infallibility. Here is a point, not of 
secular science, but of sacred truth, and a point of some importance, 
in regard to which Paul labored under a delusion, at least in the ear- 
lier part of his ministry, for they sometimes are good enough to allow 
that he came right before he died. And the sole ground on which 
the notion rests, is Paul's speaking in the first person when he speaks 
of those who are to be alive at the Lord's coming, as if it would not 
be the most natural thing in the world for me, or for any one, to do 
the same. The following observations of an American writer, Hackett, 
appear to me to be extremely judicious, and thoroughly conclusive. 
Commenting on Acts iii. 20, he says : — 

" Nearly all critics understand this passage as referring to the re- 
turn of Christ at the end of the world. The similarity of the lan- 
guage to that of other passages which announce that event demands 
this interpretation. The apostle enforces his exhortation to repent by 
an appeal to the final coming of Christ, not because he would repre- 
sent it as near in point of time, but because that event was always 
near to the feelings and consciousness of the first believers. It was the 
great consummation on which the strongest desires of their souls 
were fixed, to which their thoughts and hopes were habitually turned. 
They lived in expectation of it ; they labored to be prepared for it ; 
they were constantly, in the expressive language of Peter, looking for 
and hastening unto it. It is then that Christ will reveal himself in 
glory, will come "to take vengeance on them that obey not the gos- 
pel, and to be admired in all them who believe," will raise the dead, 
invest the redeemed with an incorruptible body, and introduce them 
for the first time, and for ever, into the state of perfect holiness and 
happiness prepared for them in his kingdom. The apostles, the first 



238 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we find 
ourselves changed. There is no long interval, in 
our case, between our laying down the natural body, 
and our resuming the spiritual body. The process, 

Christians in general, comprehended the grandeur of that occasion ; 
it filled their circle of view, stood forth to their contemplations as the 
point of culminating interest in their own and the world's history, 
threw into comparative insignificance the present time, death, all in- 
termediate events, and made them feel that the manifestation of Christ, 
with its consequences of indescribable moment to all true believers, 
was the grand object which they were to keep in view as the end of 
their toils, the commencement and perfection of their glorious im- 
mortality. In such a state of intimate sympathy with an event so 
habitually present to their thoughts, they derived, they must have de- 
rived, their chief incentives to action from the prospect of that fu- 
ture glory; they hold it up to the people of God to encourage them 
in affliction, to awaken them to fidelity, zeal, and perseverance, and 
appeal to it to warn the wicked, and impress upon them the neces- 
sity of preparation for the revelations of that day ; for examples of 
this, comp. vii., 30 — 31; 1 Tim. vi. 13, sq. ; 2 Tim. iv. 8 ; Tit. ii. 11, sq. ; 
2 Pet. iii. 11, sq. ; etc. Some have ascribed the frequency of such 
passages in the New Testament to a definite expectation on the part 
of the apostles that the personal advent of Christ was nigh at hand ; 
but such a view is not only unnecessary, in order to account for such 
references to the day of the Lord, but at variance with 2 Thess. ii. 2. 
The apostle Paul declares there that the expectation in question was 
unfounded, and that he himself did not entertain it or teach it to 
others. But while he corrects the opinion of those at Thessalonica 
who imagined that the return of Christ was then near, neither he nor 
any other inspired writer has informed us how remote that event may 
be, or when it will take place. That is a point which has not been 
revealed to men ; the New Testament has left it in a state of uncer- 
tainty. " The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night ;" 
and men are exhorted to be always prepared for it. It is to be ac- 
knowledged that most Christians, at the present day, do not give that 
prominence to the resurrection and the judgment, in their thoughts 
or discourse, which the New Testament writers assign to them ; but 
this fact is owing, not necessarily to a difference of opinion in regard 



THE DEAD RAISED — THE LIVING CHANGED. 239 

whatever it may be, that effects the needful altera- 
tion upon our material frame, is quick as lightning. 
The trumpet sounds — the last trump, the last of the 
trumpets that indicate the judgments of God, or the 
critical eras of his administration. It is the signal 
that all is over, that the curtain is to fall on the 
eventful drama of redemption. What it shall be, 
who can tell? And what matters it? There is an 
alarm of some kind, sudden and sharp. And lo ! on 
the instant, we who are alive, the living members of 
Christ and of his church, find ourselves all together; 
— invested with bodies no longer natural, corrupt, 
weak, and vile, — but spiritual, incorruptible, power- 
ful, and glorious. 

But quick as the transition is, we find a company 
assembled before us. The dead are raised incor- 
ruptible. We do not " prevent," we do not antici- 
pate or get the start of, them that are asleep. They 
are raised first. Then " we which are alive and re- 
main," being changed, " are caught up together 
with them in the clouds," that so we and they toge- 
ther may be " for ever with the Lord." 

It is idle here, and worse than idle, to give the 
reins to an excited imagination, and paint an ideal 
representation of that glorious day. The inspired 

to the time when Christ will come, but to our inadequate views and 
impressions concerning the grandeur of that occasion, and the too 
prevalent worldliness in the church, which is the cause or consequence 
of such deficient views. If modern Christians sympathized more fully 
with the sacred writers on this subject, it would bring both their con- 
duct and their style of religious instruction into nearer correspond- 
ence with the lives and teaching of the primitive examples of our 
faith." 



240 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

"S 

apostle lias not dared to do so. His not doing so is 
one of the strongest evidences of his inspiration. 
Bnt surely we do not err in regarding this as the 
final catastrophe of the church's history on earth. 
Surely it is the last act, the winding up of the plot, 
the consummation of the plan. "We cannot look 
upon this momentous and decisive announcement 
as a mere description of the successive departure or 
disappearances of individual men from this world, 
as these have been going on for ages, and may go 
on indefinitely. The transactions here indicated are 
simultaneous. There is not a going away of one 
after another, but a coming together of all into one 
company. A signal of some sort, like a trumpet 
sound, is given. At once, the dead in Christ are 
raised incorruptible. We, the living, are changed. 
A id with renovated spiritual bodies, made like his 
own, all of us are welcomed to the many mansions 
of his Father's house, in which the Lord has been 
preparing a place for us. 



DISCOURSE XV. 

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put 
on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup- 
tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought 
to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. — 
1 Corinthians xv. 53, 54. 

TN connection with the maxim or axiom announced 
in the fiftieth verse, "that flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corrup- 
tion inherit incorruption," — a difficulty is sometimes 
raised, founded upon the supposed constitution or 
condition of our Lord's corporeal nature after his 
resurrection, as it is seen in the interval between 
that event and his ascension into heaven. Did he 
not during these forty days, perform acts and offices 
such as ordinary flesh and blood performs ? And 
did he not himself appeal to the fact of his having 
a fleshly body, to prove that it was not a spirit or 
mere ghost that appeared to the disciples, but their 
Lord himself in person ? 

Now here, generally, it must be remembered that 
there hangs over the risen Lord's forty days' sojourn 
on the earth a veil or cloud, which the Spirit has not 
seen fit, by any clear revelation, to remove. Plainly, 
his manner of life was peculiar, and wholly different 
from what it was before his death. He did not fre- 
quent public places of resort. He did not, as he 
21 



242 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

used to do, worship in the synagogues or in the tem- 
ple. He was not to be met with familiarly in the 
common streets and highways, on the mountain 
side, or by the sea-shore. He did not go about 
doing good. lie did not even go in and out among 
his chosen friends, as was his wont in the more pri- 
vate hours of his previous ministry. He was not, as 
of old, the welcome guest of Lazarus and his sisters 
in quiet Bethany. He did not live, as if at home, 
among the apostles ; sharing with them common fare 
and a common purse. All is changed. He shows him- 
self only occasionally, and indeed rarely. And when 
he does show himself, it is in a strange, mysterious 
kind of way, by glimpses and momentary flashes as 
it were, in brief and hurried visits, few compara- 
tively, and far between. He appears and disappears, 
abruptly, and suddenly. He comes, they know not 
whence. He goes, they know not whither. And 
none of them ask him where dwellest thou ? 

Mary, weeping beside the empty sepulchre, hears 
her name called. It is the well-known voice of love. 
She turns and cries, Rabboni ! But she is not suf- 
fered to embrace her beloved. She may not tarry 
to enjoy his company. A short kind message to the 
brethren she gets. And lo ! in an instant, the inter- 
view is over. 

Two weary travelers are wending their discon- 
solate way to Emmaus. One draws near whom they 
do not recognize. He is a stranger, apparently, but 
a pious man, who can speak to them of the Mes- 
siah's suffering's and glory, and as such they insist 
on entertaining him. He blesses, in his own well- 



Christ's appearances after his resurrection. 243 

remembered form, their humble repast. Their eyes 
are opened. They know him ; and lo ! again on the 
instant, he ceases to be seen of them : he vanishes 
out of their sight. 

Twice, in successive weeks, on the first day of the 
week, the little company are gathered together. For 
security against intrusion, or something worse, the 
doors are shut. Unexpected, unannounced, making 
a way into the room for himself, the Lord stands in 
the midst of them. They hear the customary salu- 
tation, Peace be unto you, and are glad. They listen 
to the few words he has to say. But they seek not 
to detain him, nor does he offer to remain. He goes 
as strangely as he came. And whither he goeth 
they cannot tell. 

A party of them go a fishing at the sea of Tiberias, 
and all the night they catch nothing. As morning 
dawns, one who seems to be unknown to them is 
seen standing on the shore. Sirs, have ye any meat ? 
he asks; and they simply answer, No. Try once 
again, is his reply. The miracle which they had 
seen wrought once before at the same spot, is re- 
peated ; — and the beloved disciple says to Peter, It 
is the Lord. A conversation thereafter ensues, when 
they have come on shore, more like the fellowship of 
former days than what any of them had had with 
him since he had reappeared. It is for Peter's sake; 
— it is to meet the affecting case of the fallen apostle. 
That being done, this scene ends as unaccountably 
as the rest. Jesus is gone, and they are alone again. 

Once again he met the eleven, and perhaps a larger 
number, on Mount Olivet, near Bethany, and in the 
act of blessing them, was carried up into heaven. 



244 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

With such evidence of the Lord's manner of exist- 
ence and intercourse on earth being so entirely dif- 
ferent after he rose from what it was before he died, 
it is scarcely possible to doubt that his natural had 
become a spiritual body — that it had been raised in 
incorruption, glory, power — that it was no longer 
flesh and blood, but that substance, whatever it may 
be, into which flesh and blood is to be altered when 
it is to inherit the incorruptible kingdom of God. 

But there is one particular instance in which the 
Lord seems to assert the reverse (Luke xxiv. 36-43.) 
When he first stood in the midst of his disciples, 
his sudden and inexplicable appearance disconcerted 
them. " They were terrified and affrighted, and 
supposed that they had seen a spirit." To reassure 
them, the Lord simply says, "Why are ye troubled? 
and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold 
my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle 
me, and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as 
ye see me have." 

This thirty-ninth verse is sometimes read and com- 
mented upon, as if the risen Saviour on that occasion 
had used the same words which Paul in this passage 
uses, " flesh and blood;" or, as if the words he did 
use, "flesh and bones," had the same meaning. 
Hence, to harmonize the saying of Christ with the 
doctrine of the apostle,* some have felt themselves 
shut up to the conclusion, that our Lord's body did 
not undergo the needful change from corruption to 
incorruption till his ascension, when literally it may 
be said to have inherited the kingdom of God. 

* See Dr. John Brown's Commentary in loco. 



CHRIST THE SAME NOW AS WHEN HE ROSE. 215 

There seem to me to be insuperable objections to 
that solution of the difficulty. I would not, for my 
part, very willingly acquiesce in the idea of my Lord 
and Saviour being different, in any material respect, 
now that he has ascended into heaven, from what 
he was when he showed himself on earth after his 
resurrection. I would feel as if I were forced to give 
up the strongest proof I have by far, of his being 
the same person now, in his exaltation, that he was 
in his humiliation ; the same as to his entire human- 
ity, body as well as spirit. 

Let me speak as if I were Peter, or John, or any 
one of those who had been with Jesus. Let me 
speak, for example, as the beloved John. And I 
would say — Leave to me the impression which all 
that I saw of the Lord after he rose confirms, that 
he is now in heaven, — that he is to be when he 
comes again, — that he shall be through all eternity, 
— exactly what he was when he showed himself to 
us during the memorable forty days; — and I am 
satisfied. I know that, however the structure of his 
material frame may have been altered at his resur- 
rection, however it may have been changed from a 
natural into a spiritual body, it was not so metamor- 
phosed but that I could recognize and identify him, 
as the very friend on whose bosom I leaned at the 
supper ; and not his spirit merely, or airy unsub- 
stantial filmy ghost ; — but himself bodily ; his very 
self; seen and felt to be the same as when he touch- 
ed us upon the mount of glory, or wept with us be- 
side the grave at Bethany, or pitied us amid the 
agony of the garden. If, however, you tell me that, 

21* 



246 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

changed, as I certainly found him to be, at his res- 
urrection, he has been still farther changed in his 
ascension, you make him, alas ! an unknown friend 
to me. I am to see him again, it is true. But what 
he may be, what he may be like, when I see him, I 
cannot guess. He may be so altered that I shall 
need another Baptist to introduce me to him anew. 
But it cannot be. I remember the angel's word. 
" This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as 
ye have seen him go into heaven." The glimpses 
which I got of him when in his spiritual body he 
revisited the earth for a season — glimpses neces- 
sarily imperfect and obscure — assure me that, when 
I have risen as he rose, and my body becomes spirit- 
ual like his, we shall know one another in that king- 
dom of God which flesh and blood cannot inherit ; 
— and shall have fellowship in person one with an- 
other, not as during these few weeks, only now and 
then, but uninterruptedly throughout endless ages. 
So John might feel. And so I cannot help feel- 
ing too. To me, as to him, the fact of Christ's 
bodily nature having undergone all the change it 
is ever to undergo, at the resurrection, and contin- 
uing ever since to be such as it was shown to be du- 
ring the forty days thereafter, — recognizably sub- 
stantial, and recognizably also the same as it was 
before death, — is a precious confirmation of that 
most blessed hope, that in our spiritual bodies, in 
the heavenly state, we are to know one another and 
converse with one another; that when I and my 
brother meet on the resurrection morn ; — I among 
the living who are changed, he among the dead who 



u FLESH AND BLOOD" — " FLESH AND BONES." 247 

are raised ; — we shall meet, not as strangers, but as 
old familiar friends, to resume some interrupted ar- 
gument, or labor, or song of love divine, — and to 
start together on a new course of study, work, and 
praise, in the realms of cloudless light, and of ever- 
lasting bliss. 

The resurrection of the Lord from the dead, there- 
fore, and not his ascension into heaven, must surely 
be held to be the turning point as regards the great 
change to be effected upon his bodily constitution, 
in order to fit it for the heavenly and eternal state. 
Such as he is when he rises from the grave, such 
exactly he passes into the heavenly places. 

And yet he almost makes a boast or a merit of 
having still flesh and bones. How then, it is asked, 
can Paul say, — " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
kingdom of God?" 

The answer is, that the expressions are not ident- 
ical. Christ did not say — " A spirit hath not flesh 
and blood as ye see me have ;" but — " A spirit hath 
not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Nor is 
this a mere verbal distinction, or play upon words. 

The instances have been already noted in which 
the phrase, flesh and blood, occurs. In all of them, 
it seems to denote human nature in its present bodily 
state; corruptible, or liable and subject to corrup- 
tion. It represents that nature even at its best, or 
at its strongest. Flesh and blood cannot adequately 
know, or make known, the Son of God. Flesh and 
blood is not the ally, but the antagonist of the spirit 
in man. Flesh and blood is subject to death, and to 
the fear of death. Let flesh and blood be exercised 



248 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

or stimulated to its utmost pitch. It cannot com- 
pass the full and perfect knowledge of the Son of 
God. It requires that in the spirit we wrestle against 
it. It is under the law of death. It cannot there- 
fore inherit the kingdom of God. Such is the use 
of the expression " flesh and blood." It is altoge- 
ther a New Testament phrase. And it has, as one 
would gather from these instances, a distinct mean- 
ing. It denotes man in his present bodily state, and 
implies that even when doing his utmost, he is still 
incapacitated for his heavenly home of light, and 
love, and liberty. 

The phrase, flesh and bones, is quite different, and 
is, as if of set purpose, differently applied. It is 
twice used in the New Testament ; — by the Lord on 
the occasion before us — " A spirit hath not flesh and 
bones, as ye see me have;" — and by Paul, speaking 
of our oneness with Christ (Ephes. v. 30) — " We are 
members of the Lord's body, of his flesh, and of his 
bones." 

The corresponding Hebrew phrase is used more 
frequently in the Old Testament, and always, as I 
cannot but think, with a very definite meaning. The 
following examples may suffice : — 1. Gen. ii. 23, 
Adam says of Eve, his wife, — " This is now T bone of 
my bones, and flesh of my flesh." 2. Gen. xxix. 14, 
Laban salutes Jacob as a kinsman, — " Surely thou 
art my bone and iny flesh." 3. Judges ix. 2, Abi- 
melech reminds the men of Shechem of his relation- 
ship -to them, — " Remember also, that I am your 
bone and your flesh." 4. 2 Sam. v. 4 (1 Chron. xi. 
1,) the tribes of Israel claim a family interest in 



HOW RELATIONSHIP MAY BE EXPRESSED. 249 

David, — "We are thy bone and thy flesh." 5. 
2 Sam. xix. 12, David reproaches the elders of Ju- 
dah, because, although they were his kindred, they 
were the last to bring him back as king, after Absa- 
lom's defeat and death, — " Ye are my brethren, ye 
are my bones and my flesh." 6. 2 Sam. xix. 13, the 
king appoints Amasa to be captain of the host in the 
room of Joab, on the ground of relationship, — "Art 
thou not of my bone and of my flesh?" 

In all these instances, the idea of affinity, of close 
personal union and relationship, is implied. A cer- 
tain oneness of nature is indicated. The uniting 
principle or element, — the seat or tie of union, — is 
not blood, or flesh and blood, but flesh and bones. 

In regard to this matter, it might almost seem as 
if there were a difference between the Scriptural or 
Jewish notion, and that of the Gentiles ; — with which 
last the modern notion more nearly coincides than 
with the other. 

In our reckoning, community of blood, or con- 
sanguinity, is the chief connecting bond. So it 
was among the old Gentiles. And hence Paul, at 
Athens, (Acts xvii. 26,) speaks of God as having 
"made of one blood all nations of men." Such a 
way of expressing the unity of the race is Gentile 
and Grecian, not Jewish, nor according to the Jew- 
ish Scriptures. There, oneness in respect of mar- 
riage, or in respect of the unions of family and of 
race that flow from marriage, is expressed by a refer- 
ence, not to blood, but to flesh and bones. Indeed, 
it would almost seem as if, in this connection, the 
idea of the blood was studiously avoided. 



250 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

The blood, let it be borne in mind, was under- 
stood to be the principle of the animal life. Thus 
the command (Gen. ix. 4) not to eat blood runs in 
this form, — " Flesh, with the life thereof, which is 
the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." So, also, in the 
Mosaic law (Lev. xvii. 14 ; Deut. xii. 13,) the same 
command is made to rest on the same consideration, 
— "The life of all flesh is the blood thereof; there- 
fore ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh." 
"Be sure that thou eat not the blood; for the blood 
is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the 
flesh." The vitality of the body, as it now exists, is 
held to be in the blood. Hence, when Satan pro- 
poses that Job should be tried by the utmost severity 
of infliction upon his person that is consistent with 
the sparing of his animal life, he challenges God to 
"touch his bone and his flesh," (Job. ii. 5.) His life 
is to be saved, and the blood is the life. The blood, 
therefore, is safe. It is the bone and the flesh that 
are touched. 

If there be anything in this view, the Jewish mode 
of expressing kinsmanship, by unity of flesh and 
bones rather than of blood, bears the trace or mark 
of a higher conception than our Gentile phraseology 
embodies. To say that you and I are of one blood, 
is to put our unity upon low ground; upon the 
ground of our being joint partakers of the same 
animal nature and lower animal life, — the "life 
which is the blood." To say that we are one bone 
and one flesh, — that I am bone of your bone and 
flesh of your flesh, or you of mine, — if the origin 
and original meaning of the language is realized, 



THE EARTHLY MARRIAGE AND THE HEAVENLY. 251 

— is to elevate our affinity, our kinsnianship and 
brotherhood, into a higher region. It is to extricate 
it from the conditions of the lower economy, in 
which we are partners with the brutes which perish, 
and to give it a direction upwards to the state in 
which humanity is to be perfect, incorruptible, and 
immortal. 

Is it not possible that the words put into the mouth 
of unfallen Adam on his receiving Eve, his spouse, 
at the hands of the Lord, may have been intended 
by the inspiring Spirit for this very purpose, — to 
place the marriage union on this higher footing? 
She " is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my 
flesh?" We are one, corporeally as well as spirit- 
ually one ; not, however, as regards our blood mere- 
ly, or that lower animal life which is in the blood, 
but as regards the condition of our human nature 
which is independent of that life, and above it. And 
is not the apostle's argument somewhat remarkable 
in this view ? He virtually identifies the union of 
Christ and his people with the union of husband and 
wife. He interchanges, as it were, or rather asso- 
ciates, what is spiritual in the one with what is bodily 
in the other. He gives a corporeal character, in a 
sense, to the heavenly marriage-union, as well as a 
spiritual character to the earthly. And in doing so 
he employs, surely designedly, the same words which 
Adam uses. " We are members of his body, of his 
flesh, and of his bones;"— so says the apostle of the 
heavenly marriage-union. " This is now bone of my 
bones and flesh of my flesh ;" so says our first father 
of the earthly. 



252 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Such being the use and wont, if I may so speak, 
of the Holy Spirit in employing this phrase, flesh 
and bones, and such being the marked distinction 
between it and the other phrase, flesh and blood, — 
is it too much to suppose that the Lord had this 
very peculiarity of meaning in view when he said, 
— " A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me 
have?" 

He vindicated his corporeity; he asserted his man- 
hood, his bodily manhood. And God be praised 
that he did so. God be praised, also, that he did so 
by a more emphatic and convincing proof than his 
merely partaking of human food would have im- 
plied. He did indeed eat once before his disciples. 
(Luke xxiv. 43.) That seems to have been the only 
instance of his doing so ; for it is not said that he 
ate with the two brethren at Emmaus, or with those 
whom he met at the sea of Galilee. That he con- 
descended, on that one occasion of his first appear- 
ance to the eleven gathered together at Jerusalem, 
to partake of man's ordinary diet, was a most gra- 
cious accommodation to the weak faith of his disci- 
ples. But on reflection, they must have felt that this 
was no more than angels, and he himself as the 
Angel of the Covenant, had done of old, long before 
the incarnation ; as when the three celestial visitors 
were entertained by Abraham at noon-day, and the 
two by Lot at night. They must have been thank- 
ful for his own surer words, addressed first to them 
all collectively, and then to Thomas in particular ; — 
words most significant of continued corporeity in the 
resurrection state: — "Handle me and see; for a 



CHRIST OUR KINSMAN STILL. 253 

spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have ;" 
— " Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands ; 
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my 
side ; and be not faithless, but believing." 

There is, therefore, no real inconsistency, between 
the apostle saying " flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the kingdom of God," and the risen Lord saying, 
" I have flesh and bones." The two expressions are 
quite distinct. The first, flesh and blood, denotes 
the human bodily nature, liable to dissolution and 
decay. The other, flesh and bones, points rather to 
its higher spiritual development in a structure hav- 
ing extension and form, — bones and flesh of some 
sort, — but not necessarily of a sort resolvable into 
dust, and perishable. And when the Lord used that 
phrase to indicate his resumed corporeity, purposely 
avoiding the former, he may be understood as ad- 
dressing to his disciples an affecting appeal. 

You thought that I was gone and that you were 
never to see me more in the flesh. Now, when I 
appear, you take me for a spirit, from whose ap- 
proach you shrink as from a strange and alarming 
phantom. But I have not left you, nor have I taken 
or received a nature in which you can claim no 
affinity to me, and have no union and communion 
with me. My manhood is still such, that in respect 
of it I may be your kinsman, and you may be to 
me, what Eve was to Adam, " bone of my bones, 
and flesh of my flesh." True, you may not retain 
me in the body here ; I cannot welcome your em- 
braces, as I used to do when I was a sojourner 
among you ; " I go to my Father and your Father, 
22 



254 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

to my God and your God." But I go possessed of a 
bodily frame in which I am still one with you, and 
you are still one with me. We are one, as husband 
and wife are one, or as brethren in the flesh are one. 
I claim to be still one of you ; of the same body 
and the same family with you : and I would have 
you to look upon yourselves as still one with me, of 
the same body and the same family with me ; 
" members of my body, of my flesh, and of my 
bones." 

We surely cannot altogether err in regarding our 
Lord's remarkable language, especially interpreted 
by the scriptural usage, as designed to teach some 
such lesson as this, ultimately at least, if not imme- 
diately, to the apostles and to us. At all events, it 
is clear that it is no contradiction of the statement 
that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." 

That statement is the ground on which the apostle 
rests the assurance that our bodies must and shall 
undergo such a change as is needful for removing 
the disqualifications under which they now labor. 
"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and 
this mortal must put on immortality." It must be 
so, for otherwise we could not enter heaven in the 
body. It shall be so, for we are to enter heaven in 
the body. " So when this corruptible shall have put 
on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the say- 
ing that is written, Death is swallowed up in vie- 
tory." 



THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION. 255 

What the change is to be, and how it is to be 
effected, it is needless to inquire particularly. 
Enough has been said already on that subject. It 
may be more profitable to notice some lessons which 
it suggests. 

I. By an irresistible argument, a fortiori, it bars 
the door against whatever is unholy, impure, sensual 
or vile. If even physical corruptibility is inadmissi- 
ble there, what shall we say of moral defilement? 
Is the body better than the spirit? Does God care 
more for that material frame of yours, which at the 
best, and however perfected, can be but the house or 
tabernacle for that spiritual part of you which allies 
you to his own divinity, — does he care more for that, 
than for the spiritual part itself? If you cannot pass 
into these realms of light and glory with a body cor- 
ruptible and mortal, how think you that you can 
reach them with mind, heart, and soul, polluted and 
unclean? 

Oh, ye workers of iniquity, ye who openly practise, 
or secretly love, sin — ye who, whether outwardly in 
your conduct or inwardly in your affections and 
thoughts, walk after your own lusts — ye whose 
imagination is still evil; how can ye inherit the 
kingdom of God, if even sinless flesh and blood can- 
not inherit it? 

Think of the far different doom awaiting you. 
You as well as the righteous, survive death. For 
you, as well as for them, there is a resurrection. 
But in the Lord's own awful words, it is a resurrec- 
tion of damnation! Your bodies, as well as the 



256 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

bodies of the righteous, will undergo a change then; 
a change that will make them as indestructible as 
your immortal spirits are. Oh ! what will it be for 
you to meet your God on that resurrection day ! — 
"unjust still and filthy still!" — furnished with bodies 
of fearfully enhanced power for evil, and intensified 
sensibility to pain! What will it be for you to reap 
in such bodies an hundredfold, ten hundredfold, the 
bitter, bitter fruits of your sowing to the flesh now! 
And these bodies, ah ! they are made to last for ever. 
The worm that dieth not will never eat them away. 
The fire that is not quenched will never consume 
them. That tremendous sacrifice of righteous retri- 
bution is salted with salt for its endless preservation ! 
O ye workers of iniquity, have you no knowledge ? 
"Will you not be moved to tremble at the prospect of 
an eternity like that? 

II. How high and holy is that fellowship with 
Christ into which you are brought, as "members of 
his body, of his flesh, and of his bones!" He took 
your natural body, corruptible and mortal, that you 
might take his spiritual body — incorruptible, immor- 
tal. In respect of your corporeal as well as your 
spiritual nature, you are married, you are united to 
Christ. You who believe are thus his. Yes ! you 
who believe. 

Oh ! wondrous power of faith ! How mighty a 
spell lies in so simple an act! Only believe, thou 
doubting, trembling soul. Believe ! Christ is near 
thee sayiug to* thee, Believe! Believe in me, as 
joining myself in spirit and in body to you; — to bear 



THE POWER OF FAITH. 257 

your sin, to atone for your guilt, to take your place; 
— to be your substitute, your surety, your elder 
brother, your kinsman-redeemer; — to obey for you, 
to suffer for you, to bring you back to my Father 
and your Father, to my God and your God. Believe 
in me also as joining you in body and in spirit to 
myself; espousing you to myself; that you may be a 
"member of my body, of my flesh, and of my bones." 
Believe in me as sharing with you the very corporeity 
which I have myself; that I may present you as my 
brethren before the Father, saying — "Behold I and 
the children whom thou hast given me." 

Oh ! wondrous power of faith, uniting you thus to 
Christ! Nay rather, oh wondrous power and glory 
and beauty of him to whom faith unites you ! And 
what a union ! How close, how constant, how com- 
prehensive ! Whatever it was necessary should hap- 
pen to him, must happen also to you. The Lord 
from heaven could carry to heaven nothing corrupti- 
ble, nothing mortal, in himself or in his members. 
Therefore "this corruptible must put on incorrup- 
tion, and this mortal must put on immortality." 

III. What a motive have you in all this, to be 
spiritually minded and heavenly minded ; and to be 
so more and more as your union to Christ grows 
closer, and the time of your being glorified with him 
draws nearer. 

Your present bodies are corruptible and mortal. 
In respect of them, you are of the earth, earthy. 
This condition or quality which now belongs to 
them, calls for acts and offices which cannot be 

22* 



258 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUll. 

omitted with impunity. It entails upon you the 
necessity of discharging the functions by which life 
in the individual and in the race is maintained; 
those functions of the animal organization and the 
social economy which in this world repair the waste 
of corruption and the ravages of death. To neglect 
these functions — to affect a spirituality that is above 
them — is folly and sin. The direst consequences 
have ever come of the attempt. Let it be broadly 
stated, that as he lives now in the body, man must 
obey the laws, and fulfill the ends, of his bodily 
nature and bodily condition. To do so is plainest 
duty. But surely it is duty that ought to occupy 
only a very subordinate place in his esteem. 

-About what shall I be occupied? About things 
relating to my body, as it now is, corruptible and 
mortal ? Or about things that will task to the utter- 
most the energy of my body, when it shall have 
become incorruptible and immortal? What is to 
engage my mind, what is to interest my heart? Is 
it eating and drinking — marrying and giving in 
marriage ? These are indeed matters with which I 
must concern myself; for they involve the life and 
health of the body as it now is, and of the social 
state for which, as it now is, the body is adapted. 
But the body is not to be long what it is now; the 
social state for which it is now adapted is to pass 
away. Mortality is to be swallowed up of life. And 
"we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." In heaven "they neither 
marry nor are given in marriage ; neither do they 
die any more; but are like the angels of G-od, and 



I WAIT TILL MY CHANGE COME. 259 

are the children of God, being the children of the 
resurrection." 

Surely the things which should chiefly engage my 
mind and interest my heart, in the view of what I 
am then to be, and where I am then to be, — are the 
pursuits for which my risen body, in that heavenly 
world, will be adapted, rather than those for which 
my natural body here on earth is fitted. Surely I 
may be expected to give myself to the acquiring of 
those tastes and habits that will be found to be con- 
genial, when I am raised in Christ incorruptible, in 
body as well as in spirit, to be with him in glory for 
ever. 

IV. Finally, what a reason is there, in this high 
hope, for patient waiting, all the days of your ap- 
pointed time, till your change come. Many and 
bitter are the griefs occasioned by the corruptible 
and mortal nature of your present bodies, and the 
sad vicissitudes of the mortal state with which they 
connect you. Pain, suffering, sickness, disease rack 
the limbs and waste the frame. Sorrow and trouble 
come, through the changes which death works in 
this changing world. But courage ! child of God. 
It is but a little while. The Lord is about to change 
all things soon. " This corruptible must put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup- 
tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, 
then shall be brought to pass the saying that is writ- 
ten, ' Death is swallowed up in victory.' " Yes ! 
" He will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord 
God shall wipe away tears from off all faces." 



DISCOURSE XVI. 

Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallow- 
ed up in victory. — 1 Corinthians xv. 54. 

npHE apostle quotes this saying, or prophetic oracle, 
-*- exactly as it stands in the Old Testament (Isaiah 
xxv. 8 ;) excepting only that he throws it into the 
passive voice, to adapt it to the form of his dis- 
course ; and he makes it express time present in- 
stead of time future, to bring out more emphatical- 
ly the triumph which he celebrates. When the 
crisis comes of which he speaks, then what Isaiah 
foretold as future, — " He shall swallow up death in 
victory," — will have become a present reality, an 
accomplished fact, — " Death is swallowed up in vic- 
tory." What it was predicted that the Lord would 
do, — is done. 

The rendering, in our version, both of Isaiah's 
words and of Paul's, is exactly literal. It is true 
that the figurative and poetic expression " swallow 
up" may be reduced to the plain prosaic term — de- 
stroy; and this, accordingly, our translators have 
done in the verse of Isaiah's prophecy preceding 
that now in our view; — "He shall destroy" (liter- 
ally, as it is given in the margin, he shall swallow 
up) " in this mountain the face of the covering cast 
over all people, and the veil that is spread over all 



THERE SHALL BE NO MORE DEATH. 261 

nations." It is true, also, that the phrase, " in" — 
or into — "victory," is often found, in both lan- 
guages, in the Old Testament Hebrew, as well as in 
the Septuagint and "New Testament Greek, in con- 
nections in which it must be understood as equiva- 
lent to — utterly, or for ever. The apostle, therefore, 
might have quoted Isaiah as saying simply; — God 
will utterly destroy death, or will destroy death for 
ever. And some will have it that this is all that his 
own way of putting it really means. They would 
read the passage thus : — Then shall be brought to 
pass the saying that is written, Death is utterly 
destroyed; or death is destroyed for ever. It is 
thus virtually the same as that announcement of 
John in the Revelation, " There shall be no more 
death." 

That this is really what is meant, — and, in fact, 
nearly all that can be meant, — there can be little or 
no doubt. But one recoils from so tame and bald a 
manner of expressing it. Surely the glowing and 
vivid ideal of "death swallowed up in victory," — 
is more in accordance with the enthusiasm into 
which the apostle has wrought himself as he closes 
his lofty argument, that the mere matter-of-fact 
statement that death is destroyed, or that there is 
no more death. 

And there is a good reason for keeping the higher 
rendering which we have got. Evidently the apos- 
tle attached importance to the word "victory." It 
is the key-note of the triumphant strain into which 
he immediately bursts forth : " death, where is 
thy sting? grave where is thy victory? The 



262 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

sting of death is sin ; and the strength of sin is the 
law. But thanks be to God, which giveth ns the 
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." The men- 
tion of victory, in Isaiah's oracle, suggests the 
theme of that glorious jubilee song. It is victory, 
therefore, that Paul seizes in his eager grasp when 
he cries, " Then shall be brought to pass the saying 
that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." 

The oracle, as Isaiah gives it, points to the hea- 
venly state. Apart from the apostle's quotation of 
it, a fair investigation of the passage in which it oc- 
curs is sufficient to prove this. Whatever subordi- 
nate applications it may admit of to such deliver- 
ances, in time, as afford to the church and its mem- 
bers something like a foretaste of the joy awaiting 
them in eternity, — it is to that joy that the whole of 
the prophet's description truly and properly refers. 
It is in the consummation of that joy, accordingly, 
that the oracle, as given by Isaiah, is to have its ulti- 
mate and full accomplishment. It is not, therefore, 
a mere accommodation on the part of Paul, when 
he applies it to the resurrection ; as if he were bor- 
rowing Isaiah's words to express a different thought 
from what Isaiah meant. The prophet and the apos- 
tle, inspired by the same Spirit, point to the same 
event, when the one utters, and the other interprets, 
the saying, "Death is swallowed up in victory."* 

Let the general import and force of this saying be 
considered, as it suggests two ideas — the first, Death 

* That I may not seem to make this assertion gratuitously, I have 
added to this exposition a discourse on Isaiah xxir. xxvi. 



DEATH THE GREAT SHALLOWER UP. 263 

is swallowed up ; the second, Death is swallowed up 
in victory. 

I. "Death is swallowed up." Perhaps it may 
look like verbal trifling to dwell on this expression. 
And certainly it would be unwarrantable to attempt 
to make much of what, after all, is a mere figure of 
speech ; — meaning, in plain language, nothing more 
than this, — that death is destroyed, or is no more. 
And yet the figure is a striking one. 

Death, in this world, is the great devourer. He 
swallows up all living things. He has a capacious 
maw; he has an insatiable stomach. No nicety of 
taste, no fastidious delicacy of palate, has he. Indis- 
criminately, promiscuously, one equally with another, 
his voracity swallows up all. He is a ruthless, piti- 
less monster of prey. Neither man nor woman will 
his horrid appetite spare. The tender babe ; the fair 
youth; the blooming maid; the strong man in his 
prime ; the veteran, tough and scarred ; the feeble 
cripple, tottering under the weight of years; — all 
come alike to him. He swallows up them all. 
Hungry and greedy, he prowls in all streets and 
lanes; in all highways and by-pa^hs; in every city, 
village, hamlet; throughout all houses. He has ser- 
vants by the hundred who are keenly catering for 
him; insidiously %nd unscrupulously catering for 
him ; always, and in every place. Diseases, a multi- 
tude whom no man can number ; accidents that no 
man can prevent ; wars, plagues, pestilences ; poverty 
and famine; lusts, passions, sins, crimes; — what 
troops of ministers has he incessantly doing his 
pleasure! And with all he gets he is never gorged; 



2G4 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

lie craves for more. Like the devil whom he serves, 
he goes about seeking whom he may devour. Bribes, 
entreaties, tears, alike fail to move him from his 
purpose. Beauty has no charm — love no spell — to 
mitigate his rage. Oh ! how he riots as his cruel 
fangs pierces the loveliest form, and chills the warm- 
est heart. Power has no weapon to resist his onset. 
"Worth has no protection against his rancor; nor 
wisdom against his wiles. None are humble enough 
to be overlooked and pitied. None are good enough 
to be reverenced and spared. None are high enough 
to have the right to bid him stand at bay. The 
king of terrors, formidable to all, is himself afraid 
of none. He seizes and swallows up the whole family 
of man. 

Yes ! Even when there stood before him One 
over whom he had no power; One who could say, 
"No man taketh my life from me," — "the prince of 
this world has nothing in me:" even when the Son 
of the Highest, "the Holy One of God," "the man 
Christ Jesus," "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separ- 
ate from sinners," stood before him; — and when 
that Holy One on the cross, giving himself a ransom 
for many, bowed his head and yielded up the ghost; 
— Death ! hadst thou no shame, no scruple, no fear, 
when thou hadst to deal with him ? Was there no 
misgiving, no relenting, when to the long list of thy 
victims, his name was to be added, — and thy mouth 
was opened to swallow up him ? 

Truly, death ! that was thy choicest morsel ! — the 
daintiest and rarest delicacy thou hadst ever tried to 
swallow ! But it was thy bane, thy poison, thy ruin. 
It was the death of thee, death! 



DEATH FORCED TO DISGORGE. 265 

He could not be liolden of thee. Thou couldst 
not digest that bloody prey, — that bleeding Lamb of 
God, — all-ravenous as thou art. Thou couldst not 
keep him in thy bowels, any more than that great 
fish of old could keep Jonah in its belly. The Lord 
spake to thee, as to that fish, and compelled thee to 
vomit out his Holy One before he could see cor- 
ruption. 

That was thy first disgorging ; but, death ! thou 
knowest it is not thy last. 

On the very morning on which thou hadst to 
vomit out him, the Lord's Holy One, the Lamb of 
God, — how many " bodies of the saints which slept 
arose" and left their graves? (Matt, xxvii. 22-23) — 
bodies sown, thanks to thee, long before in corrup- 
tion, but raised, thanks to him, as incorruptible as 
his own body, — that body of his which, to thy sore 
discomfiture and dismay, O death, saw no corrup- 
tion. 

And on the other morning which is about to 
dawn, when the last trump is to sound, what an 
emptying of thy foul stomach awaits thee, thou 
gross and wormy feeder upon carcasses and carrion ! 

Give up ! is then the word — and it is the voice of 
thy conqueror, death ! — the conqueror of him who 
has the power of thee, and who wields it to keep 
mankind in bondage — Give up my slumbering 
saints, as thou wast forced to give up me! They 
are mine; " members of my body, of my flesh, and 
of my bones." They are a part of me. I and they 
are one. While thou keepest them swallowed up, 
thou keepest me. But I cannot be holden of thee ; 



266 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

not, as thou well rememberest, in my single person ; 
no, nor, as thou must now be made to see, in these 
my members. I have but waited until my body 
should be complete in all its members, down to the 
very least of them, the very lowest, and the very 
last. And it is complete now. Therefore, let it be 
vomited out, and disgorged. 

Open thy myriad-mouthed throat, thou glutton of 
many thousands of years ! And from the graves of 
earth and the depths of ocean, let my people's sunk 
and buried bodies come; not as thou hast made 
them in thy hideous digestion of them, but as I 
mean to make them, like my own in glory. Give 
me up my mystical body, as thou wast forced to 
give me up my natural and personal body; give it 
up, seeing no corruption! 

And then, when thou art emptied of all that thou 
hast swallowed up since sin gave thee an entrance 
into the world; — emptied of all; — for not the bodies 
of my people only must be given up to be fashioned 
like unto my glorious body, — but the bodies also of 
those whom he who hath the power of thee may still, 
alas ! claim as his — they, too, must be given up for 
judgment; — then, when thou hast disgorged all thy 
dead, great and small, prepare to meet the doom 
which thou hast inflicted upon them. Thy turn has 
come. Thou, O destroyer, art thyself destroyed. 
Thou, who swallowest up, art swallowed up thyself. 
Starved and lean, stripped of all thy' prey, thou art 
thyself an easy prey to victory ! 

II. " Death is swallowed up in victory." It is 



DEATH A CUNNING CONQUEROR. 267 

victory that swallows up death. This is the second 
idea suggested by the oracle. And it admits of 
being subdivided into two. In the first place, death 
is swallowed up, or destroyed, — victoriously trium- 
phantly, finally, and for ever. In the second place, 
death is swallowed up and destroyed, — merged and 
lost, — in victory. 

These are the two meanings which the statement, 
"Death is swallowed up in victory," may convey. 
They are quite consistent, and, indeed, all but iden- 
tical. The one describes the manner of death's de- 
struction — the other the end or issue of that event. 
The manner of death's destruction is victorious and 
triumphant. The end or issue of death's destruc- 
tion is victory and triumph. In the first place, death 
is swallowed up victoriously. In the second place, 
death is swallowed up into victory; it is merged and 
lost in victory. 

In either view, victory is on the field, determin- 
ing, on the one hand, the manner of death's destruc- 
tion ; and on the other hand, the fruit of it. 

In the first place, death is swallowed up, or de- 
stroyed, in victory; victoriously, in the open field; 
in open fight and triumph. It is by open conquest 
that death's ruin is effected, and not by stealth or 
by stratagem. 

His own successes are mainly gained in this last 
way. He got his entrance into paradise sneakingly 
and fraudulently. The devil, having the power of 
death, managed to introduce him, through the me- 
dium of sin, by a trick, — an underhand manoeuvre, 
— a subtle lie. Thus, serpent-like, death meanly 



268 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

crept and crawled into the world. And ever since 
he has been working for the most part under ground ; 
or, as it were, by secret agents. Wide and wasteful 
as his ravages are, they are wrought cunningly, and 
as if he were conscious of his own usurped and 
fraudulent title. He reigns indeed ; he reigns every- 
where and always ; a king — the king of terrors. But 
how? Is it not as a usurper? Is it not by conde- 
scending to a usurper's devices, and using a usurper's 
policy ? 

He walks abroad among men, with his attendant 
train of grim and ghastly executioners. And yet 
men live as if there were no death, and no instru- 
ment or minister of death, anywhere in all their 
borders. He is bent on keeping himself and his 
agents out of sight and out of mind. And for the 
most part he succeeds only too w r ell in doing so. He 
is a prince, wielding the power of him who is pre- 
eminently the prince of this world. But he wields 
that power as if with a consciousness that it is not 
legitimate. He assumes no state ; he affects no 
pomp ; he ascends no throne. He worms himself 
secretly, and by covert means and influences, under 
the highest state ; the richest pomp ; the firmest 
throne. He does not interrupt the bargaining of 
merchants with the intrusive question, " What shall 
it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in ex- 
change for his soul?" He does not startle the joy- 
ous social circle by any loud voice, or clear hand- 
writing on the wall — " This night thy soul shall be 
required of thee." He goes about his work far 



A TERRIBLE SURPRISE. 269 

more cunningly ; so cunningly, that men transact 
their business, and take their seats at the festive 
board, very much as if there were no such potentate 
as death in existence at all, or as if they had made 
" a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell, 
that would hold good for ever." 

Thus he entraps his victims ; thus he swallows up 
his prey. He is an uneasy intruder, an ill-seated 
usurper. He does not reign victoriously, or glori- 
ously, as over lawful and loyal subjects. Ignomini- 
ously, he ensnares and undermines the objects of his 
mean and malignant wrath. 

But his destruction ; — the swallowing' up of death; 
— will not be thus stealthy, insidious, and, as it were, 
underground. That is to be an above-ground and 
triumphant consummation. It is to have the char- 
acter, not of a secret success, but of an open vic- 
tory, " Death is swallowed up victoriously." 

That victorious swallowing up of death will be a 
terrible surprise to some. In a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, they find 
themselves again in the body, as if death had never 
had any power over them ; nay, more, with the cer- 
tainty that death can never come to them again. 
Unawares, almost, and unwittingly, they suffered 
themselves to fall into the arms, into the jaws of 
death, when they departed this life. It was an easy 
process ; the process of unconscious slumber. Art- 
fully and smoothly, death involved them in his net, 
and before they had time to think, swallowed them 
up in his fatal gripe. But not thus gentle and easy 
will be the awakening, when death himself is vic- 

23* 



270 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

toriously swallowed up ! Abruptly, and by a start- 
ling and sudden call, they are summoned, in those 
bodies which death then gives up, to render an ac- 
count of the deeds done in them on the earth, and 
reap the fruit of these deeds for ever in the everlast- 
ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. The 
victorious overthrow and swallowing up of death 
will be no token of victory to them. It is to them, 
— resuming suddenly the bodies in which they sin- 
ned, — the beginning of endless retribution. That 
is their portion in the victory in which death is 
swallowed up. 

But for you who, when death comes and causes 
you to fall asleep, are enabled by grace to fall asleep 
in Jesus, — what a prospect is yours in connection 
with this victorious swallowing up of death ! It 
would be a great matter to be told that you were to 
outlive death on any terms. You might be well 
content to be assured that you would find him gra- 
dually relaxing his hold over you and your brethren ; 
— and suffering you to steal one by one into paradise 
restored and regained, with the same sort of stealthy 
subtlety, as it were, with which he insinuated him- 
self into the primeval paradise at first. To know 
that death would somehow at last work himself out 
of the economy or system to which you belong ; that 
one after another you would, while yielding to him, 
elude his grasp ; and that thus escaping, you would 
find yourselves alive for ever in the spirit in some 
world of spirits ; — this would, even if it were all 
your hope, be a hope full of immortality. But it is 
not thus by flight, so to speak, or by seeming sub- 



THE MANNER OF DEATH'S OVERTHROW. 271 

mission, that you are to be emancipated and deliv- 
ered out of the hands of death. It is not merely a 
part of you that is to live on, as if by sufferance, 
after death has done his work, and swallowed up the 
rest of you. You are not merely to be gathered in 
succession, as ghosts or spirits, into a ghostly and 
spiritual world. That might imply a limitation of 
the power of death ; a restriction of it to your bodily 
frames. But it would be no victorious swallowing 
up of death ; no doing to him as he has done to 
you ; no undoing of what he has done. If the de- 
struction of death is to be a great crisis, — if the 
manner of it is to be signal and triumphant, — it can 
be so only when, — not as regards believers depart- 
ing one after another, but as regards all the saints 
collectively, — and as regards their bodily as well as 
their spiritual nature, — " this corruptible shall have 
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put 
on immortality." Then, and only " then, shall be 
brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is 
swallowed up in victory." 

It is good to contemplate the manner of death's 
ultimate overthrow, and to contrast it with the man- 
ner of his present kingdom and dominion. Here 
and now death reigns. He reigns universally, all- 
subduing, all-conquering. You do well to meditate 
on the solemn fact. You do well to watch this 
grisly king and conqueror, making his way stealthily 
among the families of men, and one by one picking 
out his victims ; this cunning reaper, putting in his 
sickle secretly, silently, slyly, to snatch at unawares 
the tenderest of the grass, the finest of the wheat. 



272 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

All ! he goes about his work like a coward and a 
spoiler ; and yon need to watch lest he overtake yon 
as a thief in the night. Never at any moment are 
you secure against the countless unseen snares which 
he sets for you on every side. You know he must 
get hold of you at some time ; but when and how 
you cannot tell. Watch, therefore, and be ready. 
Be living at every moment, as you would wish to be 
found living, were death at that moment to come 
upon you. Be walking always as children of the 
light and of the day. Make conscience of abiding 
ever in Christ, and having him and his word abiding 
ever in you, so that let death visit you at whatever 
time, and in whatever way, — however suddenly, how- 
ever terribly, — it shall not be possible for him to 
take you by surprise. 

And yet, with all this wary caution against his 
wiles, remember what death really is to you who are 
in Christ Jesus. Think of him as already conquer- 
ed, and doomed at last to perish ignominiously, at 
the first sound of the trumpet heralding the con- 
queror's triumph. Pay him not so great a compli- 
ment as to stand in dread of him. Be no more in 
bondage through fear of him. 

Tell him, you who are a child of God and an heir 
of glory — tell him, believer, when he draws near to 
frighten you, that you are content to let him have 
this corruptible and mortal body of yours ; content 
to let him do his worst upon it ; since you see the 
day already near, its bright morn already dawning 
— " when this corruptible shall have put on incor- 
ruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortal- 



THE VICTORY OVER DEATH. 273 

ity." Tell him how "then shall he brought to pass 
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up" 
victoriously ! 

Secondly, As the manner of death's destruction is 
indicated by this phrase, — " Death is swallowed up 
in victory," — so also is the fruit of it, or the consum- 
mation in which it issues. There is a victory, a glo- 
rious victory ; a victory so glorious, that in its glory 
the gloom of death is lost. It disappears ; it van- 
ishes ; it is swallowed up. It is the victory which 
Isaiah saw in vision, and which, even with all the 
aid of the Spirit's inspiration, he can but paint inad- 
equately in earthly colors (xxv. 6 — 8.) It is the vic- 
tory which was shown also in figure to the beloved 
apostle in Patmos. The picture of it crowns and 
closes the book of God. 

The elements of the victory are the final over- 
throw and utter extinction of evil ; the full fruition 
of the banquet of eternal life ; the city of the Lord 
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as 
a bride adorned for her husband; the completed 
marriage of the Lamb. The Lord then takes his 
long betrothed spouse to himself. He comes in per- 
son to nourish and cherish the church as his own 
flesh, — "the members of his body, of his flesh and 
of his bones." 

In that joyous consummation, in that nuptial 
feast, death is not. He expires in the blaze of that 
triumphant glory. Death yields to victory, — and 
disappears. 

This victory, in which death is swallowed up, the 
apostle has already described in a previous part of 



274 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

this chapter. It is the restitution of all things. It 
is the glorious advent of the Lord. He returns in 
triumph to this earth which was the scene of his 
suffering and shame. And lo ! at his bright appear- 
ing, his buried saints start forth in immortal beauty 
from their tombs ; his living servants shine in the 
bloom of an undying youth ; and a renovated world 
rejoices in the endless life, the unchanging and un- 
clouded sunshine, of paradise at last restored. 

In such a victory death may well be swallowed 
up. All the dark and loathsome features of the 
body's corruption in the tomb ; all the tears, and 
sighs, and groans of this mortal life, which has its 
issue in the tomb ; all its pains and pangs of dis- 
ease, disaster, and desolation ; its bitter bereave- 
ments, its corroding cares ; its incessant tight against 
sin and sorrow ; its prostration under the innumer- 
able ills to which flesh is heir ; all is forgotten, lost, 
engulfed, and merged in the glad deliverance and 
glorious triumph of that day of the Son of Man. 

Oh ! illustrious day ! What day in earth's history 
can be a type of thee ? 

Hark ! what shout is it I hear among that handful 
of long-beleagured and half-famished men, and wo- 
men, and children, who, for weary weeks and 
months, have been forced to be familiar with grim 
death, as their daily, hourly visitor ? In how many 
various forms has the king of terrors been among 
them ! The brave soldier on the ramparts or in the 
trenches ; the sick and wounded in the frail tent or 
the unsheltered hospital; the delicately nurtured 
form of beauty; the fond smile of infancy; — death 



THE SECOND ADVENT. 275 

has been busv with them all. It has been a terrible 
time. Hope deferred has been making all hearts 
sick. Hunger, care, disease ; incessant watching, 
working, fighting ; the enemy's uninterrupted fire ; 
the slow wasting influence of fatigue and famine ; 
have all been conspiring to plunge the little com- 
pany into the deepest gloom of all but absolute de- 
spair. Scarcely, with all their dread of horrid usage 
if they yield, and all their leal and loyal confidence 
in the friendly power that is coming to their rescue, 
can they keep up one another's hearts, and nerve 
themselves for the endurance of the dismal extrem- 
ities of distress that are oppressing them. Still they 
hold on. Drooping and dwindling away, they reso- 
lutely hold on, firm and dauntless, in the fierce and 
almost fatal struggle ; although every moment seems 
to be bringing them nearer to their inevitable doom. 
Suddenly — what sound salutes their aching ears? 
It is the rattle of friendly rifles. It is the shout of 
friendly voices. It is the well-known martial music 
that stirs home memories and home longings in 
every bosom. The deliverer, the conqueror, is 
come ! On the instant all is forgotten. Their toil, 
their weariness, their peril ; their losses and priva- 
tions ; their sufferings and sorrows ; all is lost and 
drowned in the glad cheer of welcome that bursts 
from their all but broken hearts, as with one voice 
they hail the triumph that sets them free ! Yes ! to 
them, emphatically, and in their glad experience of 
relief, death is swallowed up in victory ! 

Ah ! who shall paint the swallowing up of death 
in victory, when He shall come, — when He draws 
near, — who has triumphed over all principalities 



27G LTFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

and powers, and who brings to this weeping and 
grave-covered earth a new and imperishable spring. 
The groans of creation are ended. There is no 
more cry of distress, or bitter tear of sorrow. There 
is no more any remembrance of the dismal fruits of 
sin in the world's vain strife with vanity, corruption, 
and mortality. The conqueror appears. All the 
past is forgotten; it is all lost in the glad and glo- 
rious emancipation. Yes ! It is a victory in which 
death may well be swallowed up for ever. 

But I dare not venture to dwell on the particulars 
of the victory in which death is swallowed up. I 
close with one solemn question, which I would put 
to every one to whom I have any access. 

How do you, brother, stand related to this victory 
in which death is swallowed up ? How do you stand 
related to Him whose victory it is ? Where are you 
to be, — how are you to be disposed of, — what is to 
become of you, — in that day in which he is finally 
to destroy death? 

- Sinner, Godless, Christless sinner! living, dying 
in thy sins ! — thy grave shall give thee up ! In thy 
body thou shalt live again, to die no more for ever. 
Thy resurrection to an endless life, as well as that 
of the holiest of the saints of God, is a part of that 
victory of Christ in which death is swallowed up. 
But ah! what share hast thou in the victory and 
in its fruits ? What but the share which the devils 
have in it, the devils over whom the Lord then 
finally triumphs? What but a share in the terrible 
sentence : — " Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!" 

Oh! be not, any of you, like the devils now, when 



NO CROSS NO CROWN. 277 

Christ draws near to you to speak to you and to 
plead with you, — desiring, ah! how earnestly, that 
receiving him now, you may reign with him then. 
Say not, as the devils said, "Art thou come to tor- 
ment us before the time?" Let him torment you 
now, if it be tormenting you, to cause your sin now 
to find you out; the sad sin of your ungodliness, 
3 7 our unconcern, your unbelief. Let him slay you 
now. Let his Spirit reprove, convince, condemn 
you now. Stifle not, put not away from you, his 
movements in your consciences and in your hearts, 
tormenting as they may be for a time. Let the 
Spirit shut you up into Christ now; into his death, 
as you die unto sin ; into his life, as you live unto 
God. Be sharers of his grace now, that you may 
be sharers of his victory at last. 

And count it not strange, believers, that if you 
are to reign with Christ, as sharers of his crown of 
victory, you should have to suffer with him, as 
sharers of his cross of shame. Be content to suffer 
with him; to bear his reproach; to lead a life of self- 
denial and self-sacrifice ; to endure hardship as fel- 
low-workers and fellow-sufferers and fellow-heirs 
with him. He went about doing good, and resisted 
unto blood, striving against sin. And he now lives 
to receive and reward all who, as one with him, are 
prepared to share his cross, in the full assurance o± 
ere long sharing his glorious crown. 

Yes; I am content that it should be so. "For I 
reckon that the sufferings of this present life are not 
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall 
be revealed in us." 
24 



DISCOUESE XVII. 

O death, where is thy sting? grave, where is thy victory? The sting 
of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to 
God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. — 
1 Corinthians xv. 55, 56. 

PT1HIS is a song of victory. It is the song of those 
-*- on whose behalf is brought to pass the saying 
that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory." 
It has three parts : a triumphant challenge ; a humili- 
ating explanation ; a comprehensive thanksgiving. 

The challenge is one of triumph; — "0 death, 
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 
It is not the voice of one daring an assailant, and 
defying him to the fight, — but of one exulting over 
a prostrate foe. The explanation, again, is of the 
nature of a confession: "The sting of death is sin; 
and the strength of sin is the law." It is an ex- 
planation which comes in parenthetically, as if it 
were spoken aside, or in soliloquy, to qualify and 
abate the lofty tone of the triumph. And the 
thanksgiving fitly crowns the whole: "But thanks 
be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." "Not unto us, Lord, not 
unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy 
mercy, and for thy truth's sake." Thus death is 
triumphed over; man is humbled; and the Lord 
alone is exalted and glorified. 



death's sting and victory. 279 

Part First. — The Triumph over Death. 

"0 death, where is thy sting? grave, where is 
thy victory ?" The triumph over death acknowledges 
his former power, and rejoices in its overthrow. 

The most remarkable feature of the triumph, how- 
ever, is the acknowledgment of death's victory and 
of the manner of it. The triumph is thus seen to 
be a triumph of a humbling and mortifying char- 
acter. The triumphal song is chiefly occupied with 
a recognition of death's unworthy conquest, now 
happily and gloriously reversed. A sting and a 
victory belonged to him once. But where are they 
now? 

The sense here is little affected by a different read- 
ing of the verse, to which the most competent judges 
of manuscript authorities seem now, all but unani- 
mously, to incline. According to that reading, there 
is no mention of the place, or state, denoted by the 
term translated grave ; hades ; the unseen world ; the 
receptacle of spirits separated from the body. It is 
death itself which is apostrophised in both clauses. 
And the words, " sting" and "victory," are trans- 
posed, — so that the exclamation runs thus, — "O 
death, where is thy victory ? death, where is thy 
sting?" 

Two things may account for this reading having 
early crept into some copies of the text. 

The one is the association of these two ; — death 
and hades, in the book of the Revelation. " I am 
he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am 
alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and 



280 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

of death," — of the invisible world, and the entrance 
thereto, (i. 18.) "Behold a pale horse: and his name 
that sat on him was Death, and hell followed with 
him," (vi. 8.) "Death and hell delivered np the 
dead which were in them," (xx. 13.) "Death and 
hell were cast into the lake of fire," (xx. 14.) 

The other explanation is the notion that the apos- 
tle is quoting or referring to a prophecy of Hosea. 
"O death, I will be thy plagues; grave, I will be 
thy destruction," (xiii. 14.) That Paul had the pro- 
phet's bold personification of "death and hades" in 
his mind, — and that his own still more animated 
language was partly suggested by it, — is not im- 
probable. But the two passages are quite distinct. 
They are distinct in sense, as well as in phrase- 
ology. The one is no rule for the other. The apos- 
tle celebrates an altogether different deliverance 
from that which was contemplated by the prophet. 
And the sentence in which he does so is not the 
prophet's, but his own. 

It may be remarked, indeed, that the introduction 
of "grave," or hades, as the ally of death, is not 
according to Paul's usual manner of speaking on 
the subject; nor does it fit in very well into the 
simple, as well as noble, strain of his note of tri- 
umph over the last enemy subdued. It brings in a 
new and somewhat distracting element, to which no 
reference has been made in the whole of the long 
argument that is now concluded. The repetition of 
the term death, on the other hand, is emphatic ; as 
also is the transforrence of the term victory from the 
last clause of this verse to the first. This gives it 



DEATH THE ALL-CONQUEROR. 281 

the priority over sting, and brings it also into imme- 
diate, connection with the victory claimed in the 
verse before; — " So when this corruptible shall have 
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put 
on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the 
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in 
victory." Where then now, death, is thy victory? 
Where, death, is that sting of thine by which thou 
didst get thy victory? 

The meaning, however, when this new turn is 
given to the verse, is essentially and identically the 
same as when the old form of it is retained. And, 
therefore, being satisfied on that point, we may con- 
tinue freely to use the language that has so often 
thrilled and stirred our hearts: "0 death, where is 
thy sting? grave, where is thy victory?" 

Death, then, has a victory. He is a conqueror; 
the conqueror. All other conquerors yield to him ; 
he yields to none. He lends his aid to other con- 
querors. By means of him, and his instruments of 
destruction, they succeed. But whatever else they 
may thus conquer, they cannot conquer him. He, 
on the contrary, vanquishes them. Neither science 
nor power, neither arts nor arms, can resist him. 
Thou art the all-conqueror, O death ! 

Oh! what a victory is that which death achieves. 
The traces of it are everywhere. They are indented 
deep in memory's retentive soil; and freshly fur- 
rowed on the warm bosom of love. What tears and 
groans attest its greatness. It is a victory over all 
on earth that is brightest, fairest, best. It is a vic- 

24* 



282 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUlt. 

tory which embitters joy, and makes hope grow pale 
with fear. It subdues and saddens all hearts. 

For the achieving of this victory death has a sting. 
The weapon by which his great success is won is not 
loud artillery or flashing sword. It is rather like 
the sharp-pointed goad or prick that pierces the 
trembling flesh. It is like the dart which the rep- 
tile, or the insect, lances into the warm and flowing 
life-blood that is to carry poison into the system. 
Death is a cunning conqueror. He conquers his vic- 
tims by his sting. It is a mode of conquest neither 
honorable nor graceful. There is no bravery in it ; 
no dignity; no pomp or pride. Therefore, the hu- 
miliation of the conquered is all the greater; the 
mortification of defeat is on that account all the 
sorer. It is an ignoble victory that is gained in 
such a way. It is seen and keenly felt to be so. All 
the signs and accompaniments of it are of a nature 
to shock, to offend, to disgust. First, there is the 
body ; — so wasted and disfigured by loathsome dis- 
ease; so shattered, shrunken, paralyzed; or so torn 
and mangled by horrid accident or bloody war; — 
that even affection's fond eye can scarcely stand the 
ghastly sight, but is fain at every moment to turn 
aside. Then there is the mind in ruins; the keen 
eye of intellect gazing vacantly; the warm heart 
unconscious of a friend's embrace; the eloquent lips 
muttering incoherently ; the manly soul venting its 
peevish complainings in feeble, childish treble. 

The dreary imbecility of age : the frenzy of high 
fever ; the blank idiocy of an exhausted brain ; the 
impatient and restless querulousness engendered by 



THE TROPHIES OF DEATH'S VICTORY. 283 

long sickness and sore distress — Ah ! how do these, 
and countless other weaknesses incident to life's 
closing scene, invest it with a character of sad dis- 
honor ! — bringing down the very greatest among men 
below the lowest level of humanity — 

" From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, 
And Swift expires a driveller and a show." 

Then there is the lifeless clay, when all is over ; — 
stiff, stark, cold. Swathe it as you may; — embalm 
it as you please with all sweet spices ; — adorn it with 
all gorgeous trappings. Lay it out in state in lordly 
hall, on gilded bed. You cannot make it venerable 
or honorable. You cannot make it comely, or plea- 
sant, or lovely. It is a vile body; a body of humil- 
iation. You are glad to bury it out of your sight. 

So you lay it in the grave ; with ceremony per- 
haps, expressive of admiring gratitude ; a thronged 
procession through the hushed and silent city ; — or 
without ceremony, paying it the simple tribute of an 
honest tear. The tear and the ceremony alike bespeak 
your sense of the degradation which you sadly la- 
ment, or ostentatiously seek to cover. You la}^ the 
body in the grave ; to be subjected there to new in- 
dignities ; to undergo deeper humiliation still ; to be 
the food of worms ; to rot in the corruption of its 
kindred earth. 

Certainly death's victory, thus gained, has nothing 
in it, or about it, that is at all fitted to dazzle or to 
fascinate. There is nothing in the painful prepara- 
tion for it, — there is nothing in the dread accom- 
plishment of it, — -there is nothing in the manner in 



284 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

which it is followed up, — of what, in other victories, 
tends to impose upon the judgment and inflame the 
imagination. The agencies of disaster and disease 
that open the way for it ; the gloomy accompani- 
ments of it when it comes ; the dismal decay that 
follows; are all fitted to make the victory which 
death gains, as one hy one he conquers the succes- 
sive members of the human family, seem dark and 
hideous in our eyes. It is such a victory as a sting 
might be expected to win. 

For surely a sting is a vile sort of weapon. And 
any victory achieved by it must be vile. 

Other means by which victory is got are, as one 
would say, manly. The conqueror marching at the 
head of vast armies works, doubtless, misery enough. 
His troops devastate the land. Multitudes perish. 
Heaps of dead and wounded on many a plain ; and 
the smoking ruins of many a fair city ; tell of wide 
and wasting havoc by fire and sword. Still, with all 
its horrors, the spectacle is not one of unmingled 
and unmitigated atrocity. It has its heroic side of 
glory as well as its blacker aspect of suffering, and 
crime, and shame. There are valiant deeds done, 
and dangers nobly braved; and hardships, trials, 
losses, wounds, patiently endured. There are acts 
also of generosity, instances of pity and of friend- 
ship, such as redeem the character of the victory, 
and make it not wholly and merely base. To be 
thus victorious is glory and fame. 

But the sting is a waspish weapon. It is the in- 
strument proper to an angry insect or poisonous 
worm. To be conquered by such a tool ; to be the 



GLORY IN MEETING DEATH. 285 



* 



victims of a victory which, it has been sufficient to 
secure ; this surely is degradation indeed. The tri- 
umph of death over you has nothing in it glorious 
to him or grateful to you. There is no mitigation 
of the pain of defeat in yielding to him as to a brave 
and generous foe. 

Nevertheless, there is glory to be got in the strife 
with death. There is room for the exercise of stern 
fortitude, of calm patience, of lofty heroism in meet- 
ing him. Your sufferings, when he is fastening his 
sharp sting in your tenderest vitals to subdue you, 
may give occasion for the display of many virtues — 
as your sufferings under any sting of any wasp 
might do. To maintain your own equanimity in the 
trying hour, and soothe the sorrow of friends around 
you ; to die with decency, to die in peace ; — is a 
great attainment. There is a kind of glory in it ; 
such glory as might almost seem to dignify your 
final surrender to the all-conquering power. 

If it is nature that nerves you for this manner of 
yielding to death; natural force of character; the 
indomitable energy of a strong will ; and men have 
forced themselves thus to face death firmly; it is na- 
ture proudly recoiling from the thought of a defeat 
which yet it feels to be ignominious ; shutting out 
the thought of it because it feels it to be ignominious ; 
dwelling upon ideas more flattering to self-compla- 
cency than the victory which death is gaining by his 
sting • and, alas ! too often choosing to be insensible 
and blind to what is the chief element of bitterness 
and degradation in that victory — the sting by which 
it is gained being sin. 



286 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

If, again, it is grace which enables you to triumph 
over death, at the very moment of his triumph over 
you, the victory which overcomes is your faith ; your 
faith appropriating life in your risen Saviour, and 
anticipating your own resurrection in him ; — your 
faith already, in the full assurance of present peace 
and the clear prospect of future glory, taking up the 
triumphant challenge, " death, where is thy sting? 
O grave, where is thy victory ?" To you, death now 
has no victory at all. He has lost the only weapon 
which he could ever wield to win it — his sting. Vic- 
tory is now transferred to the other side. Eo sting 
hast thou now, death, and therefore no victory. 
The victory is with us ; not got by us, but given to 
us. It is not our own achievement ; it is the gift of 
God. We cannot spoil thee of thy victory, death, 
for we cannot rob thee of thy sting. Thy sting is 
our sin, and our sin is too strong for us. This, with 
deep contrition, we confess ; — " The sting of death 
is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." But we 
willingly consent to owe all to God. We thank him 
who " giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

Part Second. — The Humiliation of Man. 



a 



The sting of death is sin ; and the strength of 
sin is the law." This confession or explanation, in 
one view of it, admits of a very short, simpie, and 
summary interpretation. 

Sin deserves death; it is on account of sin that 
men die. Sin hath entered into the world, and 



DEATH — SIN — THE LAW. 287 

death by sin. Therefore the sting of death is sin. 
Bnt this takes place according to law ; in terms of 
a strictly legal procedure. It is by enactment of 
law that the suffering of death is annexed as the 
penalty to the commission of sin. Death is the 
consequence of sin. It is so legally. Therefore 
"the sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin 
is the law." 

All this is implied in this admission. But is this 
all that is implied in it? None who are familiar 
with Paul's other books will be easily satisfied with 
such a view of his meaning here. The chain of 
thought — death, sin, the law — is a favorite one with 
this apostle. This is probably the first instance of 
his use of it in his writings ; for the first epistle to 
the Corinthians is one of his earliest compositions. 
But one can scarcely imagine that it is introduced 
in this passage without some intention of indicating 
the deeper spiritual connection among these things 
— death, sin, the law — which he elsewhere more 
fully unfolds. 

Then, again, we must remember the bearing of 
the apostle's argument, as he introduces it in the 
beginning of the chapter. He has been carried 
somewhat aside by the necessity of dealing with the 
question, " How are the dead raised up ? and with 
what body do they come?" It is well that this 
break in his stream of inspired thought has oc- 
curred. It has led him, under the same inspiration, 
to open up very glorious views of the eternal state, 
and of our bodily condition there. But he is now 
brought back to the point from which originally he 



288 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

started. What is his great reason, as stated in the 
outset, for attaching importance to the doctrine of 
a bodily resurrection? If the dead rise not, Christ 
is not risen. If Christ is not risen, ye are yet in 
your sins. The guilt of your sins still lies upon 
him — and therefore also upon you. You are still 
helplessly under condemnation, — as he is, if there 
is no resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of 
Christ is the evidence of his deliverance, for you, 
from the doom of your sin, which he made his own. 
Your resurrection is the consummation of your de- 
liverance, in him. Prolonged continuance under 
the power of death, is to be deprecated in the case 
of Christ, because it would have proved him unable 
to shake off the load of sin which he undertook to 
bear for you. So also you, if you rise not, are yet 
in your sins. To you, as to Christ, "the sting of 
death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." 

"The sting of death is sin." The sting-like 
weapon which death uses in asserting and carrying 
out his victory is sin. He makes a handle — he makes 
a tool of sin. It is his barbed and venomous dart. 

Surely this means more than that sin is the occa- 
sion, or the cause of death ; that death comes in con- 
sequence, or on account of sin; that death passes 
upon all, because all have sinned. It is not said 
merely that the sting of death is the effect of sin ; 
that sin lets in that sting of his by which he achieves 
his victory. Sin is that sting. He gets his power 
to sting through sin. He makes the sin itself his 
sting. It is a sore and cruel sting ; piercing not the 
body only, but the spirit also ; inflicting a dastard 



THE NATURE OF DEATH'S STING. 289 

and deadly wound on the whole man ; aggravating 
a thousandfold the- bitterness and degradation of 
death's victory. He comes to conquer, introduced 
by sin. Sin treacherously throws open the gate, 
and allows him entrance into the city. That is 
saying much for the evil of sin. But that is not all. 
That is not the worst. Death, the conqueror, enter- 
ing in through sin — through sin opening the gates 
for him — compels the traitor to become his tool. 
He takes sin along with him in carrying out his 
conquest. He stings on account of sin; he stings 
by means of sin. Sin is his weapon as well as his 
warrant. Literally and emphatically "the sting of 
death is sin." 

Here then is a new and additional element of 
humiliation connected with the victory of death 
over us, besides those already noticed. These were 
chiefly physical or natural ; this is spiritual. These 
were such as are temporary and comparatively mo- 
mentary in their operation; this has issues that reach 
into eternity. 

Ah ! when viewed in this light the victory of death 
is complete indeed. It is not merely the killing of 
your body. It is your being cast into hell. If sin is 
the sting he uses when he conquers you, that must 
be the fruit — that, and nothing short of that, must 
be the effect of the conquest. It is indeed a deadly, 
it is a bitter wound which that sting inflicts. It is 
a wound for which, when death has triumphed by 
means of it, there is nowhere in all the universe, 
never throughout endless ages, any cure or palliative 
to be found. 
25 



290 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

thou stern and pitiless conqueror, couldst thou 
not have employed some other weapon for working 
thy will upon us, poor children of the dust? Ah! 
thou mightest have taken a less cruel advantage of 
the power which our sin gave thee over us. Could 
it not content thee to fill this goodly earth with 
graves, but thou must people with thy victims the 
place of everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and 
his angels? "Was it not enough for thee to take the 
scythe of time, and with it to mow down frail men 
like grass ; but thou must wield as thine instrument 
that sting of sin which sends them, guilty and lost, to 
the torments of hell for ever? 

No; thou repliest. Thou hadst no alternative. 
The weapon was not of thy seeking ; it was put into 
thy hands when thou hadst thy commission given 
thee to go forth conquering and to conquer. Sin 
was then appointed to be thy sting. No other 
instrument was allowed to thee but sin to be thy 
sting. And if it be a sting of such terrible power to 
hurt, that is no fault of thine. Thou didst not give 
it that power to hurt; but the law; for " the sting of 
death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." 

Were it not for the law, that holy law of God, sin, 
as the sting of death, might have less strength to 
injure the victims whom he subdues. 

And he, for his part, might be well satisfied to 
have it so. He might not be unwilling to accept a 
milder reign; a triumph less disastrous to the con- 
quered. So sometimes it might almost seem. For 
death, twin brother of sleep : gentle death, sweetest 
image of placid sleep ; has at times a winning way of 



death's sting hidden. 291 

his own. The grim king of terrors can assume the 
aspect of a babe smiling in its sleep. To the weary, 
worn, wasted soldier in life's dreary battle-field, he 
opens his arms, inviting him to rest on his bosom, 
as in a mother's fond embrace of love. Oh! who 
among you has not often felt as if you could wel- 
come death as your best friend ? I would not live 
alway; it is better to die than to live. When the 
heart is broken with sorrow,, or the mind dizzied 
with care ; when there steals over the whole soul a 
bitter sense of loneliness and vanity; when losses 
and disappointments, the malice of enemies, the in- 
gratitude of friends, combine to make earth appear 
a desert, the world a desolation ; when every charm 
of life is gone, and I see nowhere any refuge from 
doubt, and darkness, and despair — Oh! "how still 
and peaceful is the grave," in which I would fain 
lay my aching head ! 

At such an hour death presents himself, not 
clothed in gloom, but seeming fair. And one is 
with him, he that hath the power of death, — trans- 
formed, however, and wearing the image of an angel 
of light. The dart, the sting of death, has then for 
me no terror. Death promises to use his weapon 
tenderly. And his companion backs the promise. 
The fatal sting is hidden. I care not to ask what it 
is. I take for granted that all is well ; — till hugging 
me in his grasp, — hark ! what fiendish satanic shout 
is that I hear beside me ? — he fiings me, with a worm 
in me that shall never die, into fire that never shall 
be quenched ! 

Or it may be, that when I am made on any occa- 



292 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

sion to confront death face to face, the thought of 
his sting may give me trouble. My sin, which I 
know to be his sting, is finding me out. I have 
awakenings, misgivings, alarms. I am afraid to 
die. For I know that I am a sinner. And I dare 
not think of what my sin, in death's hands, as his 
sting, may do to me. I tremble when I call to mind 
what I have been told, that it has strength and power 
to destroy me everlastingly. 

Not so ! — it is the friendly voice of death ; and 
his accents are mild and bland ; and the same truth- 
ful ally is with him to corroborate what he says. — 
Not so ! Think not so badly of me as to imagine 
that I would wield against you a weapon of such 
strength as that. True, I am obliged to use your 
sin as my sting ; and there has been something said 
about what sin deserves, and what must be its in- 
evitable doom. But you cannot surely imagine that 
so kind and gracious a God, so merciful and loving 
a Father as he is, whom by your sin you have offend- 
ed, will be so unrelenting as to let that sin of yours, 
which is my sting, put forth all its strength to con- 
demn you evermore. If, indeed, your God and Fa- 
ther were to act very rigorously towards you, and visit 
you with the full penalty of your offences, there 
would undoubtedly be in your sin, as my sting, a 
strength, and power, and force, that must consign 
you to eternal ruin. But the force will be abated ; 
the power restrained ; the strength relaxed. You 
will not be treated so severely. Matters will not be 
pressed so hard or so far. My sting will not strike 
so strongly. Your sin, which is my sting, will be 



THE STRENGTH OF DEATH'S STING. 298 

extenuated and softened down. You shall not sure- 
ly die for ever. Thus plausibly would death, and 
his ally or master, persuade me. 

Am I tempted to listen credulously ? Are their 
smooth prophesyings beginning to tell on me ? 

Let me hear another voice sounding in my ear — 
"The strength of sin is the law." It is the voice 
of God's word to me. Let it be the voice also of 
God's Spirit in me. It comes just in time. Let it 
be in time ! It comes not a moment too soon ! 

Were it anything else that constituted the 
strength of sin ; its strength to condemn, and to 
hand me over condemned to death ; the second death 
as well as the first (for death has two chances — two 
opportunities ;) there might be some hope of death's 
sting being mitigated and mollified in my favor. 

"Were it, in the first place, passion in the breast 
of the highest, or in the second place, policy, that 
made sin a capital crime in his dominions ; there 
might be room for some proposal of adjustment 
that might make sin venial, and death consequently 
stingless and harmless. "Were it even, in the third 
place, such a necessity of sequence as is to be ob- 
served in the natural world; did the strength of 
sfh to condemn lie in any mere law of nature, anal- 
ogous to the law that regulates the falling of solid 
bodies to the ground ; if it were by such a law that 
sin got its deadly power; can we doubt that it 
would have been as a gossamer thread in the grasp 
of him who, in defiance of all such laws, walked 
upon the water, and gave health to the sick, and 
sight to the blind, and life to the dead ? 

25* 



294 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

He certainly did not come to expiate the guilt of 
a breach of a law of gravitation, or of the law of 
fever. No ; nor to expiate the guilt of any breach 
of some supposed law in the higher regions of hu- 
man experience that is of the same created charac- 
ter with these. It is no such law that is the strength 
of sin. If it were, we may well believe that there 
would be no difficulty, on the part of a gracious 
God, in its being so relaxed as to make sin, in the 
hands of death, a very gentle weapon, a very mild 
and modified sting. 

But it is not passion; it is not policy; it is not 
order ; that originates and enforces this law. The 
law which is the strength of sin, has its origin in 
the nature, — it has its enforcement in the authority, 
— of God himself, the Lord most high. This is 
what makes sin, as the sting of death, strong. Pas- 
sion might be pacified ; an angry God might be ap- 
peased. Policy might admit of adjustment; a di- 
plomatic expedient for accommodation might be 
found. The natural order and sequence, in virtue 
of which suffering comes in the train of sin, might 
be superseded or suspended, ere the case became 
desperate. But law ; the law of which sin is the 
transgression, is inexorable ; inviolable. It is un- 
changeable as the nature and authority ; the being 
and the throne; of God. And this law is the 
strength of that sin which is the sting of death. 

Is then the law my enemy ? Is it of the law that 
I complain when I say — " The sting of death is sin ; 
and the strength of sin is the law?" 

God forbid! "The law is holy; and the com- 



THE LAW OF SIN AND OF DEATH. 295 

manclment holy, and just, and good." True, I am 
taught that this law is the strength of sin. It is 
the Spirit in the word who teaches me. True, also, 
I am macfe to feel in my inmost soul that this law is 
the strength of sin. It is the Spirit in my'con- 
science and heart that makes me feel it. The law 
comes home to me. " I was alive without the law 
once ; hut when the commandment came, sin re- 
vived, and I died." " Sin, taking occasion hy the 
commandment, deceived me, and hy it slew me." 
Nevertheless, although thus in my experience " the 
strength of sin is the law," — " I delight in the law 
of God after the inward man." I approve of it, I 
have pleasure in it — even when I am conscious of 
its being to me "the law of sin and of death." 

This is my misery; this is my shame; that the 
good and holy law of my God, — the more I appre- 
hend and feel its holiness and goodness — does but 
strengthen all the more the sin in me, which is the 
sting of death. The guilt of sin that is on my 
head ; the corruption of sin that is in my heart ; 
come out the more prominently and painfully, the 
more that good and holy law is put within me. The 
convincing Spirit humbles me in the presence of 
death obtaining the victory, in strict terms of law, 
over me, a transgressor of law ; and compels me to 
bow in lowliest self-abasement before the holy and 
sovereign majesty of him whose kingdom rests on 
this immutable ordinance of righteousness : — " The 
sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the 
law." % 



296 life in a risen saviour. 

Part Third. — The Thanksgiving. 

" But thanks be to God, which giveth us the vic- 
tory through our Lord Jesus Christ." I. It is vic- 
tory that is here acknowledged ; not escape and de- 
liverance merely, but victory. II. It is through our 
Lord Jesus Christ. And, III. It is the gift of God 
through him. 

I. Victory is yours. The victory which was 
death's is now yours. Where is thy victory, 
death ? The fortune of battle is turned. "We have 
the victory now. 

And what is this victory? It is victory in an 
open court of law ; victory in the high court of hea- 
ven's eternal justice. No victory of any other sort 
would now satisfy me, if I am taught by the Spirit 
to reverence the government of God as a govern- 
ment, not of arbitrary force and mere will, but of 
righteousness and righteous law. Eor, indeed, 
would any other than a legal victory give me a right 
to exult and triumph over death. 

His conquest over me is achieved by means of 
law, and the conditions and sanctions of law. It is 
by calling forth against me the sentence of the law 
that death gets my sin to be his sting, and so sub- 
dues and slays me. That is his victory. Is it any 
victory on my part to be set over against his, if I 
steal away without venturing to meet him at all, or 
if I meet him anywhere else than on the floor of the 
law's Judgment hall ? Mine must be a legal, a judi- 
cial victory over death. It must be as open and un- 
challenged as is death's victory over me. Nay, it is 



VICTORY OVER DEATH. 297 

more honorable by far in this very point of view. 
Its honorable character contrasts well with the un- 
derhand manner of death's triumph. 

For how does death prevail ? How does he suc- 
ceed in making good his victory ? He goes to work 
stealthily and slily. He gets you to commit sin. 
How ? It is by telling you a lie ; availing himself 
of the lie of Satan who has the power of hirn — 
"Ye shall not surely die." He thus cheats you into 
sin ; and your sin, to which the law gives a con- 
demning strength, becomes immediately his sting. 
By means of it he keeps you, "through fear of him, 
all your lifetime subject unto bondage." " Sin, tak- 
ing occasion by the commandment, deceives you, 
and by it slays you." 

Such are death's tactics ; such is his victory. 

But no such tactics, no such victory, will satisfy 
your conscience, or meet your case. You will not 
consent, any more than Paul would consent, (Acts 
xvi. 37,) to get out of prison, and get off, as it were, 
privily, — by sufferance and by stealth. Your dis- 
charge must be in the face of day, and in terms of 
law. The legal authority must sanction it. Other- 
wise it is no victory. It may be a flight, or an eva- 
sion, or a compromise. It may be a feigned truce. 
It is no true triumph. 

H. It must necessarily be victory that is yours, 
for it is through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is he 
who undertakes to deal, on your behalf, with death 
the conqueror. And how does he deal with him ? 

He fully acknowledges death's victory. Kay 



298 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

more, he acknowledges its legitimacy or lawfulness. 
Thou hast conquered, death. Thou hast conquer- 
ed by an adroit and dexterous misuse of law. The 
law has been so presented to men as to irritate and 
offend. It has been made to appear harsh and stern. 
Feelings of jealousy have been awakened. The 
pride of independence has been appealed to. De- 
sires, impatient of subjection to mere arbitrary force 
and power, have been called into violent exercise. 
Thus thou hast got men ; or Satan thy master has 
got men ; to rebel and commit sin. And their sin 
is thy sting. And by it thou conquerest. It is all 
according to law ; strictly according to law. It is a 
cruelly unscrupulous way of applying law ; — to irri- 
tate, to deceive, and then to slay. Still it is all strict- 
ly legal. And now since the thing is done, and so 
done, — and thou art thus victorious, death ; — he 
who encounters thee as our champion will meet thee 
on thine own ground, with all the advantage on thy 
side which the law thou hast so cunningly worked 
allows thee. 

Come, then, O death, put forth thy sting, with all 
the strength the law can give it. Here is one invit- 
ing, courting the infliction; waiting for it ; straiten- 
ed until it be accomplished. Spare him not, 
death. Thou hast a hold over him, such as thou 
never hadst over any other of the race of man. Sin 
is upon him ; more sin than millions of the human 
family have to answer for. He is made sin for us — 
for us, countless myriads of miserable sinners. 
There is a sting for thee to use — sin, all the sin that 
he made his own. And thou needst not fear lest its 



CHRIST RECEIVING DEATH'S STING. 299 

strength should be weakened, or its power to con- 
demn relaxed. The law is firm. The lawgiver is 
firm. " Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, 
against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of 
hosts." The cup cannot pass from him. 

It is done. Thy sting is sheathed in the bleeding 
body, in the agonized soul of Emmanuel. Death! 
thou hast triumphed. Thou hast darted thy sting 
into the highest and noblest victim thou couldst 
ever have, but it is a triumph involving terrible 
hazard for thee. For if he can survive the stroke, 
then for him, and for all that are his, thy sting is 
exhausted, — it is gone. And where, death, is thy 
victory then? 

And he does survive the stroke. Your sins, O 
believers, my sins, numerous, heinous, aggravated; 
the accumulated and concentrated venom of the 
guilt of all his people ; — which was the sting that 
pierced him when he voluntarily yielded up his soul 
to death; — could not destroy that divine and holy 
one. It pierced him sore, that sting. It wrung from 
his body that bloody sweat, and from his soul the 
cry of agony; "My Grod, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me!" 

Oh ! that all careless sinners were moved to ask 
themselves how they are to endure, in their own 
persons, and through a long eternity, without relief, 
or remedy, or alleviation, that burning sting of sin 
which cost the Lord such tears and groans! 

But now sin, the sting of death, has done its 
worst. The cup of wrath which it filled with its 
own poison is drained. And lo ! that crucified one 



300 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

lives. He lives again in the body, in his manhood, 
complete and entire; as free as if the grave clothes 
had never bound him; as pure and spotless as if sin 
had never touched him; living as if death's dart 
had never drawn his blood; glorious in his right- 
eousness; mighty to save; having life in himself, 
and quickening whom he will. And he wills ; does 
he not?— to quicken thee, brother, and thanks be to 
him, to quicken me. 

Death, hast thou any other sting to try on this 
man, who is the Lord from heaven? Go, ask the 
law which is the strength of that sting of thine, — 
sin. Once the law strengthened and sharpened thy 
sting; made it quick and powerful, and oh! how 
keen ! — dipped it in the dark and pestilential fiery 
flood of hell ; gave it into thy hands, and bade thee 
do thy worst with it upon the man Christ Jesus. 
Go back now to that law, death, and tell the 
issue. Thy sting was thrust sore and deep into the 
bosom of that holy one, and yet thy victim liveth. 
Will the law, will the lawgiver, allow thee to have 
another chance? Can sin be twice visited, punished 
a second time in the same person, in the same suf- 
ferer? Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? 
The vindicated and satisfied law will strengthen and 
sharpen no sting for thee now to use any more 
against the risen, righteous Lord. 

Then where, death, is the victory how? Con- 
fess; it is not with thee, but with him; it is his. 
And confess, too, that he has gotten it fairly. Le- 
gitimately, lawfully it is his, as lawfully as ever it 
was thine. There has been no advantage taken in 



VICTORY NO FREE GIFT TO CHRIST. 301 

the fight; there was no favor shown to him; there 
was no relaxation of the conditions, no abatement 
of the rigor of that bitter encounter, that he might 
be spared. The furnace was heated seven times 
for him. The sword was freshly whetted when it 
awoke against him. Death, armed with sin as 
his sting, and backed by the law which is the 
strength of sin, had fair play and fall scope. The 
victor triumphs righteously, and is crowned law- 
fully. Therefore the victory is glorious. 

III. And is that victory ours? — Is it yours, 
believer, yours and mine? Even so. "Thanks be 
to God who giveth us the victory;" — the very vic- 
tory his Son has got. Yes, it is ours; ours by the 
free gift of God. It is freely given to us of God, if 
we will but receive it as his free gift, "through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

Ah ! it was no free gift to him. This victory was 
not freely given to him. Sore and sad was that 
travail of soul by which he had to win it. Great, 
infinitely great, the price he had to pay for it, the 
price of his own blood; his own endurance of the 
curse, or the condemnation, due to our sin. Fierce 
and terrible was the agony of that hour of dark- 
ness. Truly it was a costly victory to him. 

And is it to cost you nothing to make it yours ? 
Are you to have it without money and without 
price? Have you no work to do for it, no term to 
serve for it, no condition to fulfill for it, no blood to 
shed for it, no law to obey for it, no expiating pain 
or penance to endure for it? 
26 



302 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Oh ! thanks be to God who giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks to him for 
this, that it is his good pleasure to give it to us in 
free gift. For never otherwise could it be ours. 
We could never merit it; we could never earn it; we 
could never win it by any suffering. That sting of 
death, which is sin, sharpened and strengthened by 
the law, must ever prove too powerful for us to 
overcome. 

Have you not experimentally found it so ? Have 
you not tried and failed ? I speak to you who know 
the law ; who know it by the Spirit bringing it home 
to your conscience and your heart, causing you to 
apprehend its holy, heart-searching spirituality, urg- 
ing against you its condemning sentence. You have 
known sin by the law; you have known its sting, 
and the strength of it. You have been involved in 
that struggle of an awakened conscience, and a 
heart reconciled to the authority of the law, which 
brings out the innate and inveterate power of in- 
dwelling corruption ; that evil in you, — that heart- 
sin of ungodly and unholy desire, — which, resisting 
all your attempts to subdue it, and baffling your 
utmost energy of will, stings you the more keenly 
the more closely you grapple with it, and sinks you 
ever deeper and deeper in helpless guilt and hope- 
less condemnation. 

Yes ! And have you not known, will you not 
now consent to know, the relief, the gladness, the 
blessedness, of trying a more excellent way? Re- 
duced to utter straits, forced to cry out in bitterness 
of spirit, as your case seems to be getting worse, the 



VICTORY A FREE GIFT TO US. 303 

more you try to better it, — " wretched man that 
I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?" — will you not be persuaded, instead of pain- 
fully working for deliverance yourselves, to accept 
victory as the free gift of God? It is not far off, 
long to wait for, far to seek ; this deliverance which 
you need; this victory; full, complete, secure. It is 
yours now in Christ ; yours for the taking. Yes ! 
"there is now no condemnation to them that are in 
Christ Jesus." To you in Christ the law is no more 
the strength of sin; for it is satisfied, appeased, mag- 
nified, and made honorable. Sin has no more power 
to condemn you, or to reign over you. You are 
emancipated and free; free, as accepted in the be- 
loved, and quickened in him to newness of life ; free 
to walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. "Well 
may we now exclaim, "I thank God, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." " Thanks be unto God who giv- 
eth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
" Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." 

Thus gracious, thus glorious, is the victory which 
God giveth us through Jesus Christ our Lord, in its 
very commencement ; in the first experience of the 
believer ; when he finds the dark and malignant 
strength of sin broken; and light, liberty, enlarge- 
ment, beginning to break in upon his soul ; through 
his simply receiving and resting on the Lord J esus 
Christ, as meeting and answering the law's demands 
in his stead. 

And if it be so in its very commencement, what 
may it be expected to be in its subsequent progress, 
and in its consummation ! 



304 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

All ! it is a victory that is ever brightening as you 
press on in your Christian course and calling! The 
security of it is ever more and more distinctly seen. 
The peace of it is ever more and more deeply felt. 
The high hope which it animates is ever more and 
more eagerly grasping the fullness of its eternal 
heavenly joy. It is a victory which, as you gather 
the fruits of it in your daily walk with God ; — walk- 
ing at liberty, and having respect to all his com- 
mandments ; — gives forth more and more of its 
grace and its glory ; — its grace as won for you by 
Christ, its glory as realized by you in Christ. Until 
at last the full and final triumph comes, in that day 
when the body, as well as the soul, is made partaker 
of it ; when this corruptible puts on incorruption, 
and this mortal puts on immortality, and the saying 
is brought to pass which is written, Death is swal- 
lowed up in victory ! 



DISCOURSE XVIII.* 

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth 
and believeth in me shall never die. — John xi. 25, 26. 

rilHE Lord here identifies himself with an event, 
-*- — " the resurrection ;" and a state, — " the life." 
The event and the state are intimately connected. 
The one takes its color and character from the other. 
According to what the life is, so is the resurrection. 
If it is life in the sense in which all men on the 
earth live, — if it is the life that is here, and now, 
common to all the race, — then the resurrection is a 
mere resuscitation. It is simply a return to this pre- 
sent world, under the ordinary conditions of man's 
present occupancy of it ; such a return to life as ac- 
tually took place in the case of Lazarus, and of 
others whom our Lord and his apostles raised from 
the dead. But if it is life in a higher sense that is 
meant, — the life which consists in the favor and fel- 
lowship of God — the resurrection must obviously 
correspond to the life. 

* I insert this discourse as part of the present series, because it 
brings out more fully some points touched in the preceding discourse, 
relative to the victory over death, and the life which believers have 
in a risen Saviour. It is not unsuitable to crown, as it were, the tes- 
timony of the inspired apostle with the emphatic word of the Master 
himself. 

26* 



306 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

That this last is the life meant is evident, for it is 
associated with faith. It is the life which those have 
who believe in Jesus. Of this life it is said, on the 
one hand, that it overcomes, or, as it were, undoes 
and reverses death ; and, on the other hand, that it 
abolishes death, or renders it impossible. In the 
one view, the believer in Jesus may die, or be dead, 
yet with the certainty that he shall live. In the 
other view, he is never to die at all. 

In either view, the life is in Jesus. He is the life. 
" As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given 
to the Son to have life in himself." (John v. 26.) 
It is he who liveth and shall never die. Jesus is the 
life. 

And in order to his being the life, he is the resur- 
rection. For he was dead. But, in the first place, 
when he died, it might be said of him, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live. There is to be for him 
a resurrection. And now, secondly, it may be said 
of him that he liveth, and so liveth that he shall 
never die. " Christ being raised from the dead, 
dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over 
him. For in that he died, he died unto 6in once, 
but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God." (Rom. vi. 
9 — 10.) Hence he himself says, "I am he that 
liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for ever- 
more, Amen ; and have the keys of hell and of 
death ;" — of the unseen world and of the entrance 
thereto. (Rev. i. 18.) And hence also to those who, 
believing, are one with him, he is the resurrection 
and the life. He is their life, and in order to his be- 
ing so, he is their resurrection. In a double sense 



WHAT IS RESURRECTION WITHOUT CHRIST? 307 

he is their life ; inasmuch as, in the first place, in 
him, though they die, they shall yet live ; and inas- 
much as, secondly, living now in him, they shall 
never die. In both of these senses, he is to them 
the life. And that he may be so, he is to them the 
resurrection. 

In the first place, " I am the resurrection and the 
life;" therefore, " whosoever believeth in me, though 
he w r ere dead, yet shall he live." He shall live, for 
he has me as his resurrection, and therefore also 
as his life. He is one with me in my resurrection, 
and therefore one with me in m} r life. 

Martha was looking forward to the future. She 
was thinking of the last day, when in company 
with all the hosts of this world's dead, her brother 
would rise again. Jesus recalls her to the present. 
He fixes her thoughts on himself. Apart from me, 
that future resurrection is but a poor object of hope. 
It is not only remote, in the far-off distance. It is 
of very doubtful issue. What though all the dead 
rise, and your brother among the rest, at the last 
day? May not the resuming of the life they have 
lived in the body, be but a resuming of its weariness 
and woe; its subjection to vanity by reason of sin? 
Look rather to me now ! Receive me as the resur- 
rection now, and I will be to you the life now. 
Such life will I be to you, that though you die, you 
shall yet live. You may have to die; perhaps in 
more ways than one; but in spite of that, you shall 
survive. "lam the resurrection and the life." And 
if I am so to you, then " though you were dead, yet 
shall you live." 



308 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Secondly, "I am the resurrection and the life;" 
therefore, "whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." For Jesus being risen, dieth no 
more. "I am alive for evermore." Whosoever liv- 
eth, believing in me; being one by faith with me; 
with me the resurrection, with me the life; shall 
share my exemption and immunity from death. 
Because I live, he shall live also. In me, he is alive 
for evermore. 

Thus there are two points of view in which the 
Lord's saying, "I am the resurrection and the life," 
may be considered. On the one hand, it may be 
considered in connection with the admission that 
there maybe death; according to the promise in 
the twenty-fifth, verse, — "He that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live." On the 
other hand, it may be considered in the light of the 
assurance that there is no more death ; according to 
the promise in the twenty-sixth verse, — "Whoso- 
ever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die." 

Part First. 

It would seem to be admitted that one who be- 
lieves in Jesus, as the resurrection and the life, may 
die. It is taken for granted that he may be dead ; 
"though he were dead;" though he die; though he 
be dead. 

In a literal sense, this was an admission obviously 
demanded by the fact that Lazarus was dead. It 
would have been difficult to persuade Martha that a 
believer in Jesus was never to die when her brother 



LAZARUS IS DEAD. 309 

Lazarus was dead. Yes, there is death. My brother 
is gone. The arm that used to embrace me so ten- 
derly, the eye that so often met mine so lovingly, 
the manly frame I was so apt only too proudly to 
admire, — all is mouldering in the dark grave. But 
out of that death there is life. "I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live." 

The life, therefore, which a believer has in Jesus, 
as the resurrection and the life, is not incompatible 
with death. Nay, ft implies death. It is the anti- 
thesis or antagonism of death. The glory of it lies 
in this very concession: " though he were dead, yet 
shall he live." 

Nor is it merely to the death which Lazarus had 
just died, that this admission applies. Death, in a 
far deeper sense, is comprehended in it. The ex- 
pression — "though he were dead," — will cover not 
merely such a death as Lazarus had died, but such 
a death also as Christ himself died. Nay, it must 
comprehend and cover that death, if he is the resur- 
rection and the life, and if it is as one with him in 
that character, that he that believeth in him, though 
he were dead, shall yet live. 

Need I say what death that was ? The death 
which Christ had to die ; the death with reference 
to which it might be said of him, and said of him 
emphatically: — "though he were dead, yet shall he 
live." 

Though he were dead ; though he were to die ! 

Yes ! He was to be dead. He was to die. And 
what death was he to die ? A death of cruelty ; a 



310 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

death of agony; a death of shame. More than that. 
A death of condemnation; a death of wrath ; a penal 
death ; the cnrsed death of the cross. He was to die, 
bearing the guilt, and suffering the punishment of 
sin; exhausting the sentence of the violated law. 
That was the bitterness of his death. Thus he was 
to die. Thus he died. 

But though he was to die, yet he was to live. 
Even before he gave up the ghost, he was to be in a 
position to say, "It is finished;" "Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit." And on the third 
day thereafter he was to be "declared to be the Son 
of God, with power, by the resurrection from the 
dead." (Rom. i. 4.) 

Thus might Jesus say, in the first instance, of him- 
self, Though I were dead, yet shall I live. And it 
is because he can say this of himself, in the first 
instance, that he can say also of every one who 
believeth in him, Though he were dead yet shall he 
live. 

He may have to die, not merely as Lazarus has 
died, but as I am to die. He may have to be a par- 
taker, not in the first place, at least, with Lazarus in 
his death, but before that, with me in mine. Nay, 
it must be so, if he believes in me. 

Believing, you must enter into Christ's death. 
You must make it your own. There must be re- 
alized in your experience an actual personal dying 
with Christ. Your sin must find you out, and the 
death that is by sin. There must be wrought in you, 
by the Holy Spirit, some real apprehension of a deal- 
ing with you for your sins on the part of God, the 



CHRIST IS DEAD, AND I IN HIM. 311 

righteous Judge, exactly similar to his dealing with 
Christ, when he "bore your sins in his own hody on 
the cross. 

It may he a dealing fatal, for the time, to your 
peace ; remorselessly destructive of any life you may 
once have thought you had, — any life you may once 
have hoped to make good, — hefore your God. There* 
may he darkness above and all around. There may 
he a rending of the rocky heart within. There may 
he a sharp sword of wrath piercing you ; and a 
heavy sense of guilt oppressing you ; and the cry, 
as of one forsaken of God, may he wrung from you. 

Still shrink not from the hour ; accept the punish- 
ment of your sin ; let God smite you even to the 
dust ; — till all idea of your having any life of your 
own is gone, and you fall at his feet as one dead. 
Only believe now in Jesus. Embrace him as dying 
for you. Be ye dead in him. And lay hold of that 
assurance of his, concerning every one who believ- 
eth in him : " Though he were dead, yet shall he 
live." 

Yes ! In spite of this death you live. Nay, more. 
Through this death you live. For now, believing, 
you are counted one, because you are really one, 
with Christ in his death. His death is reckoned to 
be yours. In the eye of the law, his death is equiv- 
alent to yours. Because Christ is dead, the law re- 
gards you also, who are one with him, as dead. 
Christ, in his death, has endured and exhausted the 
penalty of the law ; and you, entering into his death, 
are held to have endured and exhausted it, in him. 
Its condemning sentence has no more hold over him ; 
nor over you who are in him. 



312 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Such is the efficacy of his death ; such its legal 
force and import. And such is the virtue of that 
real and vital union which the Spirit by means of 
faith, effects between Christ and you. You die with 
Christ ; you die in Christ. Now, " he who is dead 
is freed from sin;" from sin's curse and condemna- 
tion by the law. The law has done its worst. That 
penal death being over, first as regards Christ, and 
then as regards you who are in Christ ; he lives, and 
you live along with him. 

Is there yet awaiting you another death ? Believ- 
ing in Jesus, and being partakers with him in the 
death which he died, have you still, even after that, 
to be partakers of the death which Lazarus died ? 
Then is not the Lord's assurance as applicable to this 
death in prospect, as to the death that is past? — 
" He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live." 

Nay, much more may you have that assurance 
now. For this death before you is less terrible, less 
formidable by far, than the death from which you 
are already delivered. Believing in Jesus as the res- 
urrection and the life, you have already passed, in 
and with him, through the very death from which 
he rose, to the very life to which he rose. It was 
true of him, when he died that death of penal retri- 
bution in your stead, — made sin, made a curse, for 
you, — that though he was dead, yet was he to live ; 
to live accepted of the Father, quickened, raised, 
justified, and glorified. It is true of you who be- 
lieve in him, that though you die that very death in 
him, when you enter into his death and are cruci- 
fied with him, yet you are to live. And you do live : 



FALLING ASLEEP IN JESUS. 313 

raised with him, — raised in him, — to newness of life, 
in the favor and fellowship of God. To you now in v 
Christ the death which has bitterness is past. For 
" there is now no condemnation to them which are 
in Christ Jesus." 

The death you have now to face, the dissolution of 
your mortal frame, need not have in it, — should not 
have in it, — and if you really believe, cannot have 
in it, those elements of guilt and wrath that filled 
the cup which your Saviour had to drink, and which 
you drink with him when you are " crucified with 
him." The experience of your dying hour is not to 
be like that which smites you when, under a sense 
of sin and of the law's curse, you die now. The 
Spirit, — causing you to enter into the death of Christ 
now, and so giving you an insight into his cross, — 
slays you once for all ; empties you of all conceit of 
life ; makes you own and feel yourselves to be dead. 
But that death you survive. From that death you 
are raised. Though you were thus dead, you live. 

What remains is not death. It is a falling asleep 
in Jesus. 

"When that hour comes, believer, the Spirit bring- 
ing to thy remembrance what Christ hath said, will 
cause thee to hear these gracious words, " I am the 
resurrection and the life." Thou seest the heavens 
opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of 
God. It is as raised from the dead that he stands 
there. And thou too art raised from the dead in him. 
Dying as thou art, " thy life is hid with Christ in 
God." Thy life is bound up in the life of thy risen 
Lord. He, as the resurrection and the life, has al- 
27 



314 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

ready brought thee through a worse death than thou 
hast to die now. He will bring thee through this 
death also. He will bring thee through it complete- 
ly, — thy body as well as thy soul. Though thou 
hast to die, yet shalt thou live. May not then your 
end be peace ? Yes ; though it be even amid a 
shower of stones that thou fallest, the stormy tumult 
of angry passions raging all around, gazing still on 
thy risen Saviour thou shalt say, "Lord Jesus re- 
ceive my spirit!" And breathing the prayer of 
charity, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," 
quietly, in the arms of thy risen Lord, thou shalt 
fall asleep. 

This view of your life in Christ, as the resurrec- 
tion and the life, being consistent with your dying, 
may suggest some practical thoughts. 

In the first place, in how emphatic a sense is that 
saying of the Lord true, "He that loveth his life 
shall lose it." (John xii. 25.) He had said, with re- 
ference to his own dark death, viewed as the condi- 
tion of his life and glory, "Except a corn of wheat 
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if 
it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And then he 
adds the solemn warning, " He that loveth his life 
shall lose it." 

And yet the love of life is inherent in man. All 
men cleave to life. And not merely to the natural 
life that finds its congenial home in this warm- 
breathing world, do men cling. To life in a higher 
sense they cling ; to the idea of some spiritual life 
which they may have,— or claim to have, — as being at 



DYING IN ORDER TO LIVE. 315 

all events not utterly and hopelessly condemned in 
the sight and judgment of God. It is of that life 
chiefly that the Lord speaks when he says, "He that 
loveth his life shall lose it." And what a loss is that ! 
Oh! if there be any of you in this sense "loving 
your life;" clinging still to the imagination of your 
not being, after all, so very guilty, and so very des- 
titute of all title to favor with God, as his whole 
word proclaims you to be; if you are still going 
about to establish a righteousness of your own ; if 
you are still contriving to satisfy, or silence, con- 
science by the common pleas of worldly self-justi- 
fication ; I beseech you to consider how, as certainly 
as there is a God of judgment, so certainly must that 
life of yours, — which you are so vainly propping up 
for a brief space, by wretched shifts and expedients 
for evading his call, " My son, give me thy heart," — 
issue ere long in the discovery that all is lost! — 
when before the awful throne, the books of reckon- 
ing are opened; and your sins are set out before 
you ; and your virtues too ; your pieties and chari- 
ties; and the heartlessness of your whole way of 
dealing with God is exposed; and the heavy sen- 
tence of his holy law of love crushes you, — unholy 
and unloving, — in ruin that admits of no retrieval. 
Rather now, in the day of grace, let that self-right- 
eous life of yours be hated, disowned, renounced, 
finally and for ever. Give over the vain attempt to 
patch up a sort of truce or compromise with your 
God in regard to that life. Let it go. You are well 
rid of it. Fall at the feet of Jesus, as one dead. 
" Woe is me, I am undone." "Depart from me, for 
I am a sinful man, Lord." 



316 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

But no. For secondly, taste now the blessedness 
of dying with Jesus, — being crucified with him. 
" The corn of wheat" falls into the ground and dies. 
And he carries you with him under ground. You 
are in him as he lies in the grave ; crucified with 
him ; buried with him. That old life of yours, with 
all its sins and all its righteousnesses, is buried with 
him ; never again to come up, either to tempt you 
again to covet it, or to torment you with any feeling 
of the want of it. There, in the grave of that cruci- 
fied one, you lie buried, as to all your guilt, your 
condemnation, your liability to wrath and judg- 
ment. Surely it is a blessed thing thus to die. This 
death is better than that old life. It is better thus 
to die than in that way to live. 

It is so, because, in the third place, the life that 
issues out of this death is very blessed indeed. "The 
corn of wheat," when it dies, "bringeth forth much 
fruit" of blessed life. You live now, in and with 
Christ. His life, — his risen life, — is yours. "For 
in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that 
he liveth, he liveth unto God." "Likewise," adds 
the apostle, "reckon ye also yourselves to be dead 
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." You are in the same position in 
which you would be, if you had yourselves person- 
ally died the very death which Christ died, and risen 
again, undergoing the very resurrection which he 
underwent. How complete then is, or ought to be, 
your deliverance from the fear of death, and from the 
bondage in which the fear of death keeps you. How 
free may you be for serving the living God ; with 
hearts enlarged and elevated, by a sense of his grace 



LIVING WITH CHRIST THOUGH DYING WITH HIM. 317 

and the hope of his glory. How strong is the obli- 
gation under which you lie, as dead with Christ, "to 
crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts;" and 
as risen with Christ, to "seek the things which are 
above, where he sitteth at the right hand of Grod." 
Seek therefore more and more, in the continual ex- 
ercise of an appropriating faith, and "continuing 
instant in prayer," to be ever entering into the 
death of Christ, and to be receiving in ever-increas- 
ing measure the Spirit of life in him. This is your 
fellowship with him, first in his death, and then in 
his resurrection and life, as consequent upon his 
death. He is thus, through his death, — and in virtue 
of your participation in his death by faith, — the re- 
surrection and the life to you. Thus, though you 
die, yet you live. 

Part Second. 

But while thus, in one view, it is admitted that 
one who believes in Jesus "as the resurrection and 
the life" may die, when it is said, "he that belie veth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;" in 
another view, the reverse seems to be implied, when 
it is added, "whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die." 

The life which you have through believing in 
Jesus as "the resurrection and the life," is unbroken 
and continuous. It admits of stages of progress and 
advancement, but not of interruption. From its 
first commencement, onward through eternal ages, 
it stretches its unsevered line, its uncut thread. 

27* 



318 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

And it is one and the same throughout. It is life 
in Christ; and in Christ considered as "the resur- 
rection and the life." It is a state, reached through 
an event ; a state of lite, reached through the 
event of a resurrection. The event is identified 
with Christ; — "I am the resurrection." So also is 
the state; — "I am the life." "When you believe in 
him, the event and the state become yours, as well 
as * his; — yours, in the very sense in which they are 
his. You are identified with them, — as he is identi- 
fied with them. He is the resurrection and the life 
to you ; you are the resurrection and the life in him. 
Being one with him as the resurrection, you become 
one with him as the life. This is the law or con- 
dition of that life which knows no death. And it 
is so, in reference to all its stages of development ; 
initial here; intermediate and final hereafter. 

I. Take this new life in its initial stage of develop- 
ment, as it begins and makes progress in this world. 
It is a state reached through an event. It is life aris- 
ing or springing out of a resurrection from death. 
And the resurrection is that which, as originating 
the life, Christ identifies with himself when he says, 
"I am the resurrection and the life." 

The expression is figurative. But viewed in the 
light of the occasion, it is not obscure. Martha has 
been looking to the future, probably the remote 
future, thinking of some far distant day when she 
may embrace her brother in the flesh again. Jesus 
would recall her to the present. The resurrection 
to which you thought I was referring when I said, 
" Thy brother shall rise again," may, in one view of 



THE MEANING OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 319 

it, be far off. But in another view it is near; it is 
here ; it is in me, it is in my person. For it is a res- 
urrection which must first be realized in me person- 
ally, and then in whosoever, through grace, believes 
in me. 

How is this resurrection realized in the person of 
Christ himself? That is the first question here. 
Thereafter comes the second question, How is it 
realized in the person of him who believes in 
Christ ? 

1. In this resurrection, as realized in the person 
of Christ himself, what is involved ? 

Guided by the fuller teaching of the apostles on 
this subject, and especially by what is written in 
the Epistle to the Ephesians, (i. 19, 20 — ii. 5, 6,) we 
may partly trace the meaning of that great trans- 
action. 

In that passage Paul represents believers (ii. 5, 6,) 
as in the first place, quickened with Christ ; in the 
second place, raised up together with Christ ; and in 
the third place, made to sit together with Christ in 
the heavenly places. He thus identifies their posi- 
tion with that of Christ himself, (i. 19, 20,) when 
"by the working of his mighty power God raised 
him from the dead, and set him at his own right 
hand in the heavenly places." 

Thus viewed, the position of Christ, in his resur- 
rection, has in it these three elements of power, 
grace, and glory; — power, reversing the sentence of 
death ; grace, conveying a sentence of life ; and 
glory, crowning the conqueror with meet reward. 

In the first place, in his resurrection, Christ is 



320 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

fully and finally delivered from death ; — from the 
death he consented to die when he " gave his life a 
ransom for many." Resurrection is to him the re- 
moval, or the reversal, of the divine sentence under 
which he suffered. It is the proof that with refer- 
ence to him that sentence is exhausted. He ceases 
to lie under any of the penal consequences of that 
guilt of ours which was imputed to him, and laid to 
his account. In so far as these consequences affect- 
ed his soul, he was rid of them when he cried, " It 
is finished," and bowed his head, and expired. But 
that was not enough. So long as they continued to 
touch his body, — so long as he suffered the separa- 
tion of his soul from his body, — so long as the penal 
death he died had hold of him by any part of his 
human nature, — he was still really bearing the doom 
of sin, as one condemned. But there was no more 
condemnation when he rose from the dead. 

In the second place, in his resurrection, Christ not 
only ceases to be dead, or to lie under the sentence 
of death ; he begins to live anew ; he receives the 
sentence of life. Not only is he absolved from the 
condemnation that was upon him, as made a curse 
for us ; he is judicially acquitted ; he is accepted as 
righteous ; in a word he is justified. And the justi- 
fication is complete. For he has brought in an 
everlasting righteousness. He has rendered a per- 
fect obedience. He has endured and exhausted the 
penalty of the violated law. But he has done more. 
Made under the law, he has honored it by his holy, 
spotless, sinless compliance with its demands, and 
conformity to its spirit. As the Father's righteous 



CHRIST SITTING IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES. 321 

servant lie has done the Father's will. And his res- 
urrection is the Father's significant approval of him, 
in that character, and on that account. 

Thirdly, in his resurrection, Christ is set at the 
right hand of the Father. His seat now, as the risen 
Saviour, — his home, — is in the heavenly places, be- 
side the Father, with the Father. This is his life, 
following from his resurrection. It is the life into 
which, being man as well as Grod, he enters, — when 
he passes from the cross and from the grave, into 
the heavenly places. 

How he there dwells with the Father ; how his 
human soul is filled with overflowing communica- 
tions of the Father's love ; how there, now, as to his 
human nature as well as his divine, he is with the 
Father, being daily his delight, rejoicing always be- 
fore him; how his affections are ravished there; 
what are his activities there; tongue cannot tell, 
nor heart conceive. Enough to know that our risen 
Lord is at home with the Father in the heavenly 
places ! 

Such is the resurrection, as realized in the person 
of Christ, and such the life which it originates. 

2. Now it is this very resurrection that Christ be- 
comes to you, and this very life, when you believe 
in him. Resurrection, as realized in you, is identi- 
cal with ^vhat it is, as realized in him. First, you 
are quickened together with Christ. Secondly, you 
are raised up together with him. And, thirdly, you 
are made to sit with him in the heavenly places. 

All this is realized in you. Yes ! In you who 
are dead in trespasses and sins ; who are by nature 



322 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the children of wrath ; who walk according to the 
course of this world, and this world's prince ; whose 
conversation is in the lnsts of the flesh, (Eph. ii. 
1, 2 ;) — in you, thus situated by nature, all this is 
realized. 

You who are dead, are quickened ; you who are 
children of wrath, are raised in righteousness ; you, 
whose walk is worldly, or something worse, — whose 
conversation is carnal, — are made to sit, as at home, 
in the heavenly places. 

All this, I say, is realized in your experience, 
when you believe in Jesus as " the resurrection and 
the life." His resurrection^ and consequently his 
life, become yours. 

There is an act of power here. There is the ex- 
ercise of the exceeding greatness of the power of God, 
according to the working of his mighty power, 
which he wrought in Christ when he raised him 
from the dead and set him at his own right hand in 
the heavenly places." (Eph. i. 19, 20.) It is power, 
however, exercised in a peculiar manner. It is om- 
nipotence. But it is omnipotence acting in terms 
of law ; and that law, the moral law ; the law of love 
and duty, which can neither be forced nor evaded, 
but must be honored and obeyed. 

Look again at the Lord Jesus Christ in his death. 
See him as his body lies in the tomb. "What obsta- 
cles stand in the way of his resurrection ? 

Some obstacles there are, which a mere and sim- 
ple exertion of divine power may remove. The 
stone can thus be rolled away from the mouth of the 
sepulchre ; and the breath of life can thus be made 



OMNIPOTENCE ACTING ACCORDING TO LAW. 323 

to reanimate the clay-cold corpse. There might 
thus be a resurrection effected by the mere fiat of 
Omnipotence. The Father speaks and it is done ; — 
"Let the grave be opened; — let the principle of 
vitality again possess that body; — let the disembodi- 
ed spirit return to it." There is a resurrection thus 
effected. The dead Christ is raised. 

But he is raised only to be what he was before. 
He is raised to resume his old life in the flesh; — 
under the old terms and conditions; the old obliga- 
tions, and responsibilities, and liabilities. He is 
raised, to be again made under the law; — under its 
authority, and under its curse. A resurrection, in 
the case of Christ, effected by a mere act of power, 
might have done that; it could do no more* than 
that. It could not have brought him into a position 
in which he might be "the resurrection and the life" 
to us. It would have been a return to the old life, 
not a resurrection to a new life. 

His resurrection, if it is to be available as a source 
of life to you, must be a judicial act, as well as an 
act of power. Omnipotence effects it; but I repeat, 
it is Omnipotence acting according to law. It is the 
Almighty One speaking, and it is done. But it is 
at the same time the Righteous One saying ; — It is 
enough; the judgment is over; the punishment has 
been borne. The surety, when he is raised and re- 
vived, rises and lives upon a new footing. And, 
therefore, on that new footing, he is in a position to 
be the resurrection and the life to you ; — to all, to 
any of you who will believe in him. 

!Now it is precisely so with you, when he actually, 



324 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

in your apprehension of him, becomes the resurrec- 
tion and the life to you; when you believe in him as 
risen and living. 

There is a twofold divine act, in that event of 
your history, — that crisis in your experience, — that 
change in your spiritual state, — which is implied in 
Christ being the resurrection and the life to you ; or 
in other words, in your being "raised with him to 
newness of life." 

First, there is an act of power; an operation of 
the Almighty Spirit. The sealed stone at the mouth 
of Christ's sepulchre; the perfect deadness of his 
bodily frame ; its utter incapacity for originating life 
or motion ; these are but faint types of the obstacles, 
external and internal, which have to be dealt with 
and overcome, before one who is dead in sin can 
rise and live. The immediate and direct touch of 
Omnipotence, and that alone, can meet the case. 

To roll away the stone, — the hard and heavy stone, 
— of careless unconcern and carnal security, with 
which the world, and the world's prince contrive to 
close the way of access into the heart and con- 
science; and then, to impart vitality; — so that the 
smitten conscience may mourn, and the broken 
heart give forth its tears; — that is the Spirit's work 
of power. 

But, blessed be God ! the Spirit works in harmony 
with that judicial resurrection-act, apart from which, 
even a real spiritual resurrection would be in vain. 

For of what avail would it be to have fresh vitality 
imparted to the soul; to have the conscience and the 
heart quickened into new sensibility, as regards the 



A JUDICIAL ACT AS WELL AS AN ACT OF POWER. 325 

claims of God and the guilt of sin; if it were to 
issue merely in your being put again where you 
were before, — and set again to the old task of work- 
ing out a righteousness or resurrection, and a life 
or justification, for yourselves ? Quickened thus in 
conscience and in heart, — with conscience keenly 
sensitive, and heart affectionate and warm, — you 
would only aim the higher in your attempt to satisfy 
God's law of love, — and sink the deeper under a bit- 
ter sense of failure and defeat, — of condemnation 
and of wrath ! 

To recall Christ again, by a resurrection of mere 
power, to the state in which he was when he died; — 
to place him again under law as he was before ; — to 
impose upon him a second time the obligations and 
responsibilities which he had already so fully met; 
—this would have appeared, in the eyes of all intel- 
ligences, intolerable severity. And yet he could have 
stood the ordeal. He could have passed again un- 
scathed through the furnace heated seven times. 

But for you to be spiritually quickened in heart, 
and soul, and conscience ; — and at the same time left 
in the state in which you are by nature, as regards 
your relation to God, and your standing in his sight ; 
— to be put, as it were, again upon your probation; 
to have simply another opportunity given to you of 
trying how you may right yourselves with God; — 
and that, too, with an altogether new sense of holi- 
ness and of sin ; — such procedure on the part of God 
towards you w T ould be a sort of mockery. It would 
be as if God had given Adam a second chance in the 
garden of Eden ; as if reinstating him there, with the 
28 



826 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

knowledge he had got of good and evil, — of unat- 
tainable good and inevitable evil, — God had simply 
proposed to him, as if in irony, a repetition of the 
experiment of the forbidden tree. 

That, however, is not the manner of God. "When 
Christ is raised, there is an act of power; rolling 
away the stone, and causing the buried body again 
to breathe. But along with that, there is a judicial 
act; removing the condemnation, — passing a sen- 
tence of acquittal and acceptance, — admitting him 
who had died a criminal, to a prince's seat on the 
king's throne, — and to a son's place in the Father's 
heart. 

Even so, when Christ is made of God to you "the 
resurrection and the life," there is an act of power. 
The door of that heart of yours, which is a very 
sepulchre, — whited, perhaps, but still a sepulchre, — 
is broken open ; — often violently, with much force 
of awakening and conviction, a sort of earthquake 
shaking you with great terror; — sometimes, how- 
ever, more gently, as if an angel's hand were touch- 
ing the stone very tenderly. The dead bones within 
are stirred to life. The Spirit breathes on them. 
Stupid, carnal unconcern, gives place to earnest, 
anxious, inquiring sensibility. Thus far there is an 
act of power; — issuing in the cry, "What must I do 
to be saved?" 

But again, along with that, there is a judicial act. 
You hear the call, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved." You hear; and hearing, 
through grace you believe. And now, first of all, 
you are delivered from death; for "there is no con- 
demnation to you who are in Christ." Nay, more; 



THE FUTURE WORLD. 327 

in the second place, you are judicially acquitted and 
accepted as righteous; you are raised to life in the 
beloved. Nay, in the third place, more still; you are 
made to sit with him, as adopted children, partakers 
of his filial rank and nature, in the heavenly places. 
You have a life, whose seat and centre, and home is 
the bosom of the Father, where the Son himself 
dwells for evermore. 

Thus, with reference to your experience in this 
world, Christ is to you " the resurrection and the 
life." Through union and participation with him 
in his resurrection, you come to have union and par- 
ticipation with him in his life. Believing in him, 
you live; absolved, justified, adopted; and so live 
that you shall never die. 

II. This life, thus reached by a resurrection, has 
stages beyond this present world. It is unbroken 
in its continuity; when once begun, it must go on 
uninterruptedly. The act of divine power, — and the 
judicial act, or sentence of divine law, — concurring 
in the resurrection which originates the life, secure 
its continuing for ever ; and its continuing for ever, 
always the same. " Christ being raised from the 
dead, dieth no more ; death hath no more dominion 
over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin 
once ; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Like- 
wise reckon ye also yourselves dead indeed unto sin, 
but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
Living and believing in Jesus, you never die. 

But your life, realized through faith in Jesus as 
the resurrection and the life, — your life in the risen 
Saviour, — has its eras. It has eras even here in this 



328 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

world ; it has its dates or times of progress and ad- 
vancement. And in reference to the world to come, 
it has at all events these two ; — death and the resur- 
rection. 

1. Death, in this view, is not really death : it is a 
step in the march of that life which knows no death. 
It is, in fact, your second resurrection. 

"When you fall asleep in Christ, he is even then to 
you "the resurrection and the life." He is so, in a 
new sense, and to a new effect. For he then severs 
completely the ties that bind you to the past and 
present here, and throws you wholly on the future 
elsewhere. 

In your conversion, — when you believe in Christ 

now and here, — he is to you " the resurrection and 

» 

the life." Spiritually, and by faith, you rise from 
the death of guilt and apostacy, and pass with him 
into the heavenly places. And there you sit with 
him at the right hand of God. This you realize by 
faith ; — often by an effort of faith by no means easy. 
Your aspirations after the resurrection-life now, — 
your endeavors to enter into it and carry it out, — 
are hindered by your present worldly condition, and 
your present bodily frame. Both are unfavorable 
to its development. The world is adverse, and 
the world's prince ; " the flesh lusteth against the 
Spirit." 

At death, these obstacles are taken out of the way. 
The world is left behind, and the prince of the world. 
The flesh is cast off. Emancipated from all earthly 
ties, disencumbered of all fleshly desires, you depart 
to be with Christ. Absent from the body, you are 
present with the Lord. Is it not a step in advance ? 



THE UNEARTHLY AND INCORPOREAL STATE. 329 

Undoubtedly it is so ; and a great one. It is virtu- 
ally entering, through a new resurrection, into a new 
life. The new resurrection, is the escape which the 
soul, perfected in holiness, makes from the world 
and the body ; — from the world lying in wickedness, 
and from the vile body, that is corrupting and cor- 
ruptible. The new life, is the rapturous communion 
with the risen Saviour, which the soul thus deliver- 
ed may enjoy. No outward object distracts. No 
burden of flesh depresses. Away from the world of 
sense, abstracted from things external; — all carnal 
tastes and tendencies cast off; — you are at home 
with Christ in God. 

And it is with Christ as risen that you are at home 
in God; — in his favor, his fellowship, his love. 
Leaving this earth, and the body which is moulder- 
ing in its dust, — with no thought of either any more, 
— you pass into the august presence in which your 
risen Lord has his home. And you are one with him 
there ; your disenthralled and disencumbered spirit 
is one with him there ; one with him in the life 
which, as to his human soul, he reached, when, on 
the very day of the crucifixion, he himself passed, — 
carrying the spirit of the dying thief along with him, 
— into paradise. 

Is he not here to you — is he not here pre-eminent- 
ly, "the resurrection and the life?" Your death, 
thus viewed, is no interruption of your resurrection- 
life, but the lifting of it up, as by a new resurrec- 
tion, to a higher stage and platform on which it 
may be developed more fully. Surely this is the 
consummation of the blessedness to which you may 

28* 



330 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

aspire as living and believing in Christ; and in 
Christ never dying. 

2. And yet this unearthly and incorporeal life has 
its drawbacks. It is an advance on what goes be- 
fore. But the very circumstances in respect of 
which it is so, constitute its imperfection. In the 
step taken at death, the external world and the ma- 
terial body are cast off; and the soul emerges bare 
and naked, to find its home with Christ in God. 
This, undoubtedly, is a step in advance ; it may be 
said to be a second resurrection. Here, on the earth, 
when Christ becomes to you the resurrection and the 
life, the utmost you can look for, as regards the 
world and the flesh, is that you maybe in a position, 
and may have power, to overcome the world and 
mortify the flesh. At death, you cease to have any 
connection with a world needing to be overcome, 
and with flesh needing to be mortified. It is a great 
and blessed emancipation. Christ is now to you 
more than ever before, the resurrection and the life. 
You are partakers with him, — unharassed, and un- 
hindered, — in all that he sees, as the risen Saviour, 
of the Father's glory, and all that he enjoys of the 
Father's love. 

And yet there may be a more excellent way. Ab- 
sence from the world and the flesh is not the perfec- 
tion of your being. It is not the perfection of 
Christ's. If there can be a world that does not re- 
quire to be overcome, and flesh that does not require 
to be mortified ; — if you can resume your worldly 
condition and your bodily frame, not only without 
the necessity of constant war against them in the 
spirit, but with the certainty of their ministering to 



THE BODY GLORIFIED — THE EARTH RENEWED. 331 

your holiness and joy; — if you can return to this 
earth, or such an earth as this, renewed and puri- 
fied ; — with bodies incorruptible, spiritual, and im- 
mortal; — is not this a high hope set before you? 
And is not this your hope, in him who is the resur- 
rection and the life ? 

He has himself a glorified bod}^ He is coming 
to possess a renovated earth. 

You, seeing him as he is, are to be like him. You 
are to reign with him, sharing his throne and crown. 
Your life, begun now in him who is "the resurrec- 
tion and the life," is to have its perfection of holi- 
ness and happiness then; for "when he who is our 
life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him 
in glory." 

Several important lessons, of a practical nature, 
may be drawn from the views now submitted. 

I. As originally uttered, this assurance of the Lord 
was fitted, and probably intended, to throw light on 
what, to believers under the Old Testament dispen- 
sation, seems to have been a dark object of contem- 
plation — the intermediate spiritual state that comes 
in between death and the resurrection. 

Of the resurrection itself they had a firm persua- 
sion and bright prospect. It was " the hope of 
Israel;" "the hope of the promise made of God unto 
the Fathers." Their views as to the nature of that 
world into which the resurrection was to usher them, 
may have been inadequate, and more or less carnal. 
But when it is testified of them that they "walked as 
strangers and pilgrims in the earth, declaring plainly 
that they sought a country," "a better country," "a 



832 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

heavenly country," — it is undeniable that they looked 
for an inheritance to be reached by a resurrection. 

A cloud, however, as it would appear, hung over 
the blank space in front of that event. It was felt 
to be a dreary void; — that vast unseen region in 
space, that blank interval in time, wherein ilesh and 
blood are not. 

Hence, probably, that excessive shrinking, some- 
times amounting almost to horror, which holy men 
of old manifested, when they were standing on the 
threshold of that unknown eternity. They express 
themselves almost as if it were annihilation that they 
feared. And hence that passionate, and as we might 
be apt to think, even unbecoming, eagerness, with 
which such men as David and Hezekiah cling to 
this earthly state, and deprecate removal from it, as 
if it were of all calamities the greatest. The gloom 
which appalled them rested mainly, I am persuaded, 
not on the territory beyond the resurrection — for 
that might admit of a well-defined embodiment in 
the imagination — but on the awful vacancy before it. 

This word of the Lord to Martha, is perhaps the 
first distinct sound given by the trumpet to chase 
these dark doubts away. " He that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live," is a promise 
that might point to the resurrection. But what fol- 
lows, " Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die," — must embrace the intermediate state. 
And when connected with the intimation, — "I am 
the resurrection and the life," — it conveyed une- 
quivocally the bright hope, that u to be absent from 
the body" would be to be "present with the Lord." 
It is the same hope that the Lord gives, when he 



RESURRECTION THE HOPE OF ISRAEL. 333 

says to his fellow-sufferer on the cross, " To-day shalt 
thou be with me in Paradise." It is the hope which 
enables New Testament believers to look steadfastly, 
as they depart, into the opened heavens, and seeing 
their Lord there, "the resurrection and the life," to 
say, as Stephen said, falling asleep in him, Lord 
Jesus, receive my spirit. 

II. Still the hope of Israel is the resurrection. 
The belief of the resurrection, — first, of Christ's 
resurrection for you, and then of yours in him, — is 
the indispensable condition of your hope, whether 
in time or for eternity. Take that away, and you 
are indeed of all men most miserable. You may 
well give up your baptism for the dead,, your hourly 
jeopardy, your daily death, your fighting with wild 
beasts at Ephesus. To what purpose should you 
commit yourselves to a course of self-denial, taking 
up the cross and following Jesus? Better far aban- 
don that dream of a higher life altogether, and make 
the most of the world as it is. "Let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die." 

Resurrection is the only way to life — Christ's 
resurrection, and yours in him. No otherwise can 
the curse of sin, and its accompanying corruption, 
be shaken off. A resurrection life alone can meet 
your case. It is as risen with Christ that, in the first 
place, you live, and, in the second place, living, shall 
never die. 

In the first place, the beginning of this life, in 
your experience, is and must be a resurrection — a 
resurrection, in your case, corresponding to the 



334 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

resurrection that there was in the case of Christ. 
In order to this, remember, two acts of God must 
concur and conspire — an act of power, restoring the 
vital principle; and a judicial act, placing you, with 
your restored vitality, on a right footing with God, 
the righteous judge. Regeneration, in short, and 
justification, meet in this resurrection, and the two 
together are essential to its completeness. There 
must be a new birth, a new creation. And along 
with that, and coincident with that, there must be 
the canceling of the sentence of condemnation, and 
the passing of a sentence of acquittal and acceptance. 
Is it thus that you are risen with Christ, quickened 
with him, justified in him? Let that first question 
be fairly met. 

In the second place, as it is a resurrection life in its 
commencement, so it is a resurrection life throughout. 

It is by a resurrection ; by your being one with 
Christ in his resurrection, — in the vitality then im- 
parted to his human frame, and the Father's accept- 
ance of him as the righteous one, himself justified 
and justifying many; — it is thus that you enter into 
this life. 

And so also, it is by your realizing this resurrec- 
tion more and more ; — it is by your realizing more 
and more your oneness in Christ in his resurrection ; 
— that you keep up, and cherish, and exercise, this 
life in all its stages; now in this present world; after 
death in the world of spirits ; and after the resurrec- 
tion, through all eternity in the new heavens and 
the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 

It is the same life throughout. It is a resurrection 



CONTINUITY OF THE RESURRECTION LIFE. 335 

life. It is your participation in the resurrection 
life of Christ. Now, by faith, spiritually, you sit 
with him in the heavenly places. At death your 
soul is with him there. At the resurrection you are 
with him bodily, among the many mansions of his 
Father's house, where he is preparing a place for you. 

How completely does this consideration identify 
the life that now is and the life that is to come ! 
They are no more twain, but "one spirit." It is 
throughout one spirit that is the breath of this life ; — 
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It is the one Holy 
Spirit; — making you, in successive stages, more and 
more partakers of the resurrection life of Christ. 

Ah ! how calm and holy is this progressive life ! 
It knows no violent breaks. Even death and the 
resurrection are not interruptions of it. Its change- 
less stream flows ever equably on. Through the 
portals of the tomb it enters a purer, but a narrower, 
channel. At the opening of the doors for the King 
of Glory at the last, it issues forth ; — a broad river 
of joy and love, rolling its ceaseless tide among the 
islands of the blessed for ever. From the first, 
throughout, its essential character is the same. It 
has the same taste, the same color, the same ten- 
dency. The life which you now live in the flesh, is 
the same as the life which you are to live when you 
depart to be with Christ. It is the same, as to all 
that constitutes its real nature, with the life which 
you are to live after the Lord has appeared ; — to 
" change your vile body that it may be fashioned 
like unto his own glorious body," and to say, 
" Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you from the foundation of the world." 



336 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

For, finally, the life is Christ throughout. He is 
the resurrection and the life. He is so now; " To 
me to live is Christ." He is so at death ; " I depart 
to he with Christ. Absent from the body, I am pre- 
sent with the Lord." He is so at the resurrection ; 
" When he shall appear, I shall be like him, for I 
shall see him as he is." So Christ maybe regarded 
as teaching ; — I am now ; I shall be when I take you 
hence ; I shall be still more when I return hither, 
bringing you with me again ; — I am always, ever- 
more, "the resurrection and the life." 

Is not this your consolation, believers ? Is not 
this your hope? When your tears flow fresh for 
your loved and lost ones, you think of them as they 
are now, far away from you, and for that you mourn. 
But you think of them as being with Christ, and 
you are comforted for them. When, again and 
again, the thought of their separation from you 
rushes back to afflict you, you think of them as 
coming with Christ to meet you, and you are com- 
forted for yourselves. It is their being with Christ 
that comforts you for them. It is their coming with 
Christ that comforts you for yourselves. And when 
your own dissolution is present to your mind, and 
the eternal state is in solemn prospect before you ; 
on what do you fasten as your hope ? Is it not on 
the assurance that when you leave the body you go 
to Christ, — and that when you resume the body 
again it is to be with him where he is; — to " behold 
his glory, the glory which the Father hath given 
him," for "the love with which he loved him be- 
fore the world was?" 



DISCOURSE XIX. 

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable. — 
1 Corinthians xv. 58. 

PJ^HE argument for a future state and a bodily 
■*" resurrection wbicb the apostle has been so 
nobly maintaining, settles down into a very simple, 
but very earnest and affectionate practical appeal ; 
— " Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, 
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the 
Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not 
in vain in the Lord." It is an appeal which joins 
together hope and work ; the hope of future glory, 
and the present duty of work. And it does so 
through the medium of faith. For, on the one 
hand, the exhortation, "be ye steadfast and un- 
movable," has respect to faith. It is an exhorta- 
tion to a rooted and unshaken firmness of adher- 
ence to the belief of the truth. But, on the other 
hand, the faith is to be active and operative ; "al- 
ways abounding in the work of the Lord." It is to 
be a working faith — a faith working and laboring 
abundantly, because it works and labors in hope — 
" forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in 
vain in the Lord." For as there is good reason for 
the faith being sure and strong, so there is ample 
encouragement for the labor being abundant, almost 
29 



338 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

to excess. On the ground of all that this lofty ar- 
gument proves, your faith may well be firm. In the 
view of all that it opens up to you, your work may 
well be abundant. 

Thus two great practical lessons are to be enforc- 
ed. The first of these will occupy the present dis- 
course. It is the lesson which has respect to faith ; 
— " Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast 
and unmovable." 

These words, "steadfast and unmovable," have 
substantially the same meaning, but with different 
shades. If we were speaking of a building, and 
calling it steadfast, the idea suggested would be that 
of a work of strong masonry, standing firm on a 
secure and solid foundation. To say of it that it is 
immovable, would be to call attention to its being 
proof against wild storms and violent assaults. 

The two thoughts are intimately connected. It is 
its being steadfast that renders the fabric immova- 
ble. It is immovable, because it is steadfast. 

Be ye then steadfast, that ye may be immovable. 
Be steadfast in the belief of the resurrection of the 
body, having a well-grounded and deeply-rooted 
conviction of the truth, and a strong sense of the 
importance of the doctrine. For it is your sense of 
its importance that must make you steadfast. It is 
that which will lead you, when you have thoroughly 
satisfied yourself as to its truth, to be very firm and 
very tenacious in keeping hold of it. 

If the matter at issue were some merely specula- 



THE DOCTRINE OF VITAL MOMENT. 339 

tive and theoretical point of inquiry, — if it were 
some minute and subtle question about the mode or 
manner of the future life, — you could afford to sit 
loose to it, and treat it lightly, as one of those cu- 
rious and debatable subjects in regard to which 
much may be said on both sides, and in regard to 
which it does not matter much which side you take. 
But the resurrection of the dead is not a topic of 
that sort. It is no theme for mere gladiatorship and 
fence of intellect in an academic club. It is not 
such a piece of current news, or idle gossip, as one 
listens to with interest or amusement for a moment, 
but without caring to investigate, or verify, or re- 
tain it. 

The truth concerning the resurrection is of vital 
moment. It touches the very essence and heart's 
core of the gospel of Christ. The view which you 
take of it, whatever that may be, must color the 
whole of your Christianity ; — your whole Christian 
faith, and your whole Christian life. So the apostle 
teaches. 

Thus, in the first place, it touches the credibility 
of those on whose testimony your faith rests, (ver. 
15.) a We are found false witnesses of God; be- 
cause we have testified of God that he raised up 
Christ : whom he raised not up, if so be that the 
dead rise not." This of itself is surely a very se- 
rious consideration. 

If the apostles of the Lord are not to be believed, 
when they tell you — that some of their number saw 
the sepulchre, in which his body was laid after he 



340 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

had been crucified, empty on the third day there- 
after ; that repeatedly, for forty days, the Lord show- 
ed himself alive, by many infallible signs, to one or 
two of them separately, and to all of them toge- 
ther ; that they were satisfied that it was the Lord 
alive in the body whom they saw ; alive in the very 
body which he had before he died, changed indeed, 
but still unmistakeably to be recognized as ident- 
ically the same ; — if they are not to be believed 
when they tell you this ; — and when they appeal for 
corroboration of its truth to some five hundred 
brethren who once saw him altogether, and most of 
whom are still alive, and may be questioned; — if 
the apostles, in what they thus so expressly and sol- 
emnly testify, are found false witnesses of God — the 
very apostles, upon the foundation of whose testi- 
mony you, as believers, are built — where is the proof 
of Jesus Christ himself being the head corner- 
stone ? Where the evidence of any one fact of his 
history, his birth, his life, his death, his miracles, his 
discourses, his tears and sighs and groans, the prayer 
of his agony, the loud cry of his cross ? Even as 
matters of fact, all these things are now doubtful. 
The divine mission of Christ is no longer certain. 
The gospel may be a fable or a myth. 

Such dire and vast issues flow from that transcen- 
dental spiritualism of yours which spurns, as gross 
and materialistic, the idea of an actual bodily resur- 
rection in connection with the life to come. It is 
impossible, in consistency with that opinion, to 
maintain the reality of the bodily resurrection of 
Christ. That being called in question, — the integ- 



THE WORK OF CHRIST. 341 

rity, not to say the authority of the apostles, as 
Christ's witnesses, is overthrown ; and as a neces- 
sary consequence, their whole testimony and teach- 
ing concerning our blessed Lord is cut up by the 
very roots. 

A doctrine, the denial of which involves such 
wide havoc and destruction of the foundations — "If 
the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous 
do ?" — is not one that can be held lightly or loosely 
by any of you who are persuaded that there is no 
salvation in any other than Christ ; that there is no 
other name given under heaven among men where- 
by they can be saved. You cannot treat it as a 
matter of doubtful disputation. You cannot suffer 
ingenious and specious questioners or dreamers ; — 
nor any plausible essayist who would have you call 
your death your resurrection, and scorn the thought 
of any other ; — to shake or move your firm and im- 
movable belief of this great truth, that your dead 
and buried bodies are to rise and live again. In the 
grasp which you take of it ; — in the strong belief 
which it works in you of the testimony of the apos- 
tles and the divinity of Christ ; — you will be stead- 
fast and immovable ; — steadfast that you may be im- 
movable. 

For, in the second place, not only is the Lord's 
divinity, or divine authority, thus involved in the 
question of the resurrection ; — the reality also of his 
great work of propitiation is at stake. 

If there is, and can be, no such thing as a resur- 
rection of the body; if the very notion of it is to be 

29* 



342 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

contumeliously dismissed with a sneer — as a resur- 
rection of relics, a resurrection of corruption ; — then 
Christ is not risen. What took place on the third 
day after his crucifixion, may have been some mys- 
terious removal or annihilation of that which was 
buried. Something may have been done with it to 
prevent its "seeing corruption." For as in our 
case, what the grave holds does see corruption, — so 
even in his case, it is to be presumed, if he was truly 
man, that what the grave held, must and would have 
seen corruption, if it had been allowed to lie long 
where Joseph of Arimathsea laid it. But in what- 
ever way that material flesh may have been disposed 
of, so as to see no corruption, — it cannot, according 
to such a theory, have been resumed into connection 
with the person of Christ. For if it was, the whole 
objection taken to the resurrection falls to the 
ground. If that flesh of Christ, — which was cor- 
ruptible, although it saw no corruption, — was so al- 
tered that he could fitly resume it as part of himself ; 
and as what is to continue part of himself for ever; 
then our flesh, although it does see corruption, may 
be so altered too. And what then becomes of the 
denial of the resurrection of the body, either Christ's 
or ours ? 

Plainly, therefore, the denial of the resurrection 
implies that Christ has not taken again into union 
with himself, as part of his person, anything of what 
lay in Joseph of Arimathsea's tomb. He is now, as 
to his human nature, and he will ever be, exactly 
what he was when, having said, " Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit," he bowed his head, 



DEATH AMONG THE INFERIOR ANIMALS. 343 

and gave up the ghost. That, and no more, as to 
his humanity, he is. 

Be it so, one asks, and what then ? Why, then, 
it follows, either on the one hand, that death is not 
to men the penalty of sin, or on the other, that 
Christ has not redeemed men from the penalty of 
sin. 

This is surely a very grave and momentous alter- 
native. Let us look at either side of it. 

I. If you say that Christ may have redeemed us 
from the penalty of sin without rising from the dead, 
then you must maintain that death is no part of the 
penalty of sin ; since, if he has not risen, whatever 
else he may have redeemed you from, he has not 
redeemed you from the power of death. You are 
neither exempted from death, nor triumphant over 
death. It cannot therefore be a penal consequence 
of sin, if you hold Christ to have redeemed you from 
the penalty of sin, and yet left you subject to death. 
You must maintain, I repeat, on that supposition, 
that death is no part of the penalty of sin. But can 
this be maintained, in the face of the clear and un- 
equivocal, the constant and consistent, teaching of 
the word of God ? 

I do not enter into any consideration of death, as 
the law or condition of being, among those tribes of 
animals that are not appointed to live for ever. 
There may have been, there certainly was, a reign 
of death over the reptile and monster races that peo- 
pled earth and ocean, for ages before the birth of 
man. For anything that Scripture says, even if man 



344 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

had never sinned, death might have continued to 
prevail among the creatures made for man, and 
placed under mau's dominion; — the creatures to 
which, as their lord, man gave their distinctive 
names. It may he a universal law of this lower 
creation of God, that the brutes, not having immor- 
tality, must perish successively one by one by death. 
I see nothing in the Bible against that view. 

But it is a very different thing — it is quite another 
matter — when there appears on earth, among these 
brutal tribes, a being of a higher order; — fashioned 
partly like them, but endowed with that high gift of 
intelligent and spiritual life which they have not. 
Here is a family, not merely designed for prolonged 
existence as a race whose individual members perish, 
— but every one of whose members is destined to live 
for ever. 

Such a being, such a family, cannot well be sub- 
ject or liable to death, by anything like the same 
kind of natural law as that which takes effect on 
the successive generations of the lower animals. 
It may be the design of their Creator, that after 
due probation, the individual members of this new 
family shall undergo, one by one, some change, 
transforming their natural bodies into spiritual, — 
such a change as Enoch and Elijah must have un- 
dergone; — and shall pass, one by one, into some 
higher and more spiritual and perfect state of being, 
for which their material frames may thus be adapted. 
But whatever provision may be made for their under- 
going such a change and passing into such a state, 
it cannot be at all analogous to that which is made 



DEATH AMONG MANKIND. 345 

for the brutes. For in the case of the brutes, it is a 
provision not for their passing into another state of 
existence, but for their perishing finally. If man is 
appointed to die, as they die, it must be in virtue of 
some other sort of law than that physical or natural 
law which ordains their death. And so, accord- 
ingly, it is. It is not by the necessity of any physi- 
cal or natural law, originally imposed upon him at 
his creation ; but by the sentence of an authoritative 
moral law, which he subsequently chose to violate ; 
that man is doomed to die. Death is not to him the 
law of his constitution ; operating, as other laws of 
nature do, by a force and in a manner of which no 
account can be given, but simply that things are so 
constituted and made. It is the judicial and retri- 
butive punishment of the sin which he committed 
in voluntarily transgressing the holy and good law 
of his God. Death, in his case, is not the ordinance 
or arrangement of the Creator. It is the verdict and 
award of the Judge. It is not as a creature, but as 
a criminal that man dies. No other death on earth 
is like his. Such is the uniform testimony of Scrip- 
ture, in passages far too numerous to be quoted. 

It is not meant, of course, that man's being made 
subject to death, in common with the other animals, 
is the whole of the penalty of his sin. "When he was 
sentenced after his fall, he was doomed to undergo 
many evils in this life preliminary to death ; shame, 
remorse, fear, sorrow, suffering, toil; — expulsion 
from Eden, with the necessity of cultivating, instead 
of a teeming garden, a comparatively barren waste ; 
— the loss of his Maker's love, and the helpless dread 



346 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

of his Maker's righteous wrath. Then there is the 
state into which death ushers the guilty soul; — 
passing, as one says, "denuded of all but conscience, 
into the open presence of the Holy One;" — and that 
other state which is to begin, when "all that are in 
their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God 
. . . and they that have done evil shall come forth 
to the resurrection of damnation." 

Still, of all these terrible inflictions, here and here- 
. after, death, with sin as its sting, is as it were, the 
centre, and symbol, and type. They are all summed 
up in death, the subjection of a rational and imper- 
ishable being, conscious of guilt, — and his subjec- 
tion by the just sentence of a judge, authoritatively 
enforcing the sanctions of a statutory law, — his sub- 
jection in that character, and in that way, to the 
ordinance of death. Hence, while death, as a law 
of their nature, sits so light on the unthinking brutes 
that perish ; — to man death is bitter as the wages and 
the punishment of sin. 

II. But now, I ask on the other hand, has Christ 
redeemed man from this punishment of sin ? Not if 
there be no resurrection ; not if Christ is not risen. 
That is the other side of the alternative. It is the 
only other inference that can be drawn from the de- 
nial of the bodily resurrection. 

This is so very clear, that such reasoners as I have 
now in view would scarcely think it worth their 
while to question it. They do not contend for any 
thing like a literal redemption of guilty men by 
Christ; his literally giving himself a ransom for 



is Christ's death vicarious? 347 

tliem; taking their place, as criminals, condemned 
by a legal and judicial sentence to a penal death; 
and by his endurance of that death in their stead, 
delivering them. Death, in fact, according to them, 
was not a penal infliction upon Christ at all. It 
could not be so; for it is not really a penal infliction 
upon us whom he came to save. Hence his death 
was not vicarious ; it was not his endurance of the 
penalty of the law, in the room of those who had 
incurred that penalty. He was not in any such 
sense a propitiation for our sins. 

That he came in our m nature ; — and lived, and 
labored, and suffered, and died for us, and on our 
behalf; — these persons admit and strongly hold. He 
came to be our brother ; and as our brother, to go 
through all the experience through which we as sin- 
ners have to pass. It is an experience having in it 
many elements and ingredients of degradation, bit- 
terness, and pain ; — including the dissolution, by 
suffering and decay, of this corruptible mortal 
frame, that our better part may survive and live. 
Christ, uniting himself as our brother to us, went 
through it all ; carrying us in some mysterious way 
along with him. And we, united to him as brethren, 
are enabled to go through it all, with him and in 
him, as he did. 

Such seems to be their idea of the Son's work of 
mediation and atonement. And, indeed, it is the 
only sort of idea of it which they well can have, so 
long as they do not recognize, — either the penal 
character generally of the death which sinners have 
to die ; or the penal character in particular of the 



348 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

death, which Christ, as bearing sin, died. In their 
view there is no occasion, and indeed no room, for 
Christ in his death being really the substitute of 
sinners. Sinners, in fact, need no substitute ; they 
can have none. A companion they may have ; an 
example; a sympathizing brother; but not a sub- 
stitute. There can be nothing in Christ's death, 
any more than in their own, beyond the operation 
of an ordinary law of nature ; nothing indicating 
the sentence of a higher law of an altogether differ- 
ent sort ; nothing, therefore, demanding such as- 
surance of that sentence being reversed as a resur- 
rection alone can give. They, accordingly, who 
conceive thus of man's mortality and of Christ's 
mediation, can afford to look with a large amount 
of indifference on the doctrine of the resurrection 
-rr-Christ's resurrection and their own. With them, 
the question as to a real bodily resurrection, has lit- 
tle or no bearing on the redemption of the world 
by Christ ; or on man's hope in Christ for eternity. 
But it must be otherwise with you. Death is not, 
in your view, a debt of nature. It is a debt of law. 
It is a legal punishment; a judicial infliction. It 
has a strictly penal, a deeply penal character. You 
die by sentence of law. You die by the sentence 
of that law whose awards and issues — whose inex- 
orable and righteous awards — whose irresistible and 
inevitable issues — reach on through all eternity. 
That is the character of your death. That is the 
character and meaning of the death which Christ 
dies for you ; on your account ; in your room and 
stead. 



CHRIST DIES BY SENTENCE OF LAW. 349 

Will it do, will it suffice, if lie thus die for you 
and rise not again ? 

You believe that the death from which he has to 
redeem you is a penal death. You believe that he 
has to redeem you from it vicariously ; by a vicarious 
substitution of himself in your room and stead. Is 
the redemption complete — is there any redemption 
at all — if he still underlies that penal death ? — if he 
has not broken its bands, and come forth anew into 
a life to which the legal penalty of death can attach 
itself no more for ever ? 

"Therefore be ye steadfast and unmovable." 
Those who seek to move you from your settled faith 
on this subject, can afford to do so. They do not 
take the views which you take of sin, and what sin 
deserves ; of death, and what death involves. But 
sin to you is deadly. And death by sin is eternal 
ruin ; final, fatal, everlasting damnation. 

And all this is according to law ; to law, not made 
by God, and therefore capable of alteration and 
modification by God; but inherent in God, and 
therefore unchangeable as is his very nature ; — to 
law ; not merely impressed, as a mode of activity, 
on unintelligent and irresponsible creatures, but im- 
posed, as a rule of life, on active moral agents. It 
is all according to law, such law as this, that sin to 
you is deadly ; and the death of sin, or death by sin, 
is to you eternal ruin. 

How, then, can any redeemer who dies for you, 

and does not rise again, meet your case ? If he 

really dies for you, it is a penal death that he dies. 

He dies by sentence of law. And if he does not 

30 



350 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

rise again, he is still under that sentence of law by 
which he died. He has consented to make common 
cause with you ; to share with you your liability to 
this judicial sentence and penal death. But, if he 
has not risen from the dead, that is all. You have 
a fellow-sufferer, but not a Saviour. You have one 
who is willing to be a sentenced criminal along with 
you, and to take your crime and sentence as his 
own. But you have no deliverer; no redeemer. 
There is no reversal of the sentence ; no absolution 
from the criminality in his case ; for death has its 
free course and full effect, and there is no undoing 
of it. He is lost — with reverence be it said — with 
you. You are not rescued by him. If your sin has 
brought upon you the flood of penal death, — and if 
Christ is to be your Redeemer, by plunging himself 
into that flood, and letting its stormy waves go over 
his head instead of yours, — the sacrifice is vain un- 
less he himself first emerge and come out from 
among the billows. Otherwise he perishes, and you 
are not saved. So is it with respect to the resurrec- 
tion of Christ. "Without it there is no redemption. 
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast in 
your belief of the resurrection of Christ ; and, with 
a view to that, and as underlying it, be ye steadfast 
in your belief of the great doctrine of the general 
resurrection ; steadfast and immovable ; steadfast 
that you may be immovable. 

For, thirdly, your standing as believers, your jus- 
tification, your peace, is intimately connected with 
that doctrine of the resurrection, in the faith of 



THE BELIEVER'S JUSTIFICATION. 851 

which you are exhorted to be steadfast and immov- 
able. It is a doctrine as essential to your complete- 
ness in Christ, as it is to his completeness for you. 

Your life, the new life which you have in Christ, 
if it is to be worthy of the name, must be the re- 
verse or counterpart of your death — the old death 
which he dies for you. It is life from the dead. If 
your old death is by sentence of law, so also must 
your new life be by sentence of law. If the death 
is a penal death by law, the life is a life of acquittal 
by law. If the death is condemnation, the life is 
justification and peace. 

But the possession of this new life, as well as 
deliverance from that old death, is inseparably con- 
nected with the belief of the resurrection. A resur- 
rection, and nothing but a resurrection, can prove 
that the old penal death of condemnation is undone ; 
that it is past, and over, and gone. A resurrection, 
and that alone, can give assurance of the new life of 
acquittal and acceptance being legitimately begun. 

Christ died for your sins, and rose again for your 
justification. His rising again is, on the one hand, 
the proof that his dying for your sins was a full 
atonement for them ; that it exhausted the legal 
sentence in terms of which death is inflicted as the 
punishment of transgression. And well it might, 
considering who the victim was, and how willingly, 
in love, he gave himself up. But, on the other 
hand, his rising again was more than that. It was 
his making good a legal claim to life as the reward 
and acknowledgment of righteousness. 

"If Christ is not risen, ye are yet in your sins;" 



352 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

even you who have believed in him. You have be- 
lieved in him in vain. You took him to be your 
substitute ; bearing in his own person, in your stead, 
the penalty of your sins ; suffering in your room, and 
dying the death which you deserved to die. He has 
undertaken all this, it seems ; he has undergone it 
all. But there is no resurrection. Death still reigns. 
There is no reversal of the sentence of death by sin. 
Where, then, is your redemption, your deliverance 
from sin? Are you not still, in spite of your faith 
in Christ — are you not still in your sins ? 

Nor is this all. Even if you get over that dif- 
ficulty, another remains. Let the sentence of death 
expend itself on Christ. Let him be the scape-goat, 
bearing your sin ; carrying it away into one knows 
not what land of forgetfulness. Let him die as the 
victim, the ransom, the Lamb of God taking away 
the sin of the world; and as regards that mortal part 
of him in respect of which he was laid in the tomb, 
let him be heard of no more. There may, in that 
case, by a bare possibility, be an end of sin, and of 
sin's condemnation. But where is the beginning of 
righteousness, and of acceptance by righteousness ? 

You desiderate, yearn, and long for — you ask and 
require — a Saviour who was dead and is alive ; who 
is alive exactly as he was dead ; alive as to the very 
part of him in respect of which he was dead. A 
Saviour still dead will not meet your case. He must 
be one who can say, "I am the first and the last: I 
am he that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am 
alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of 
hell and of death." 



INDULGENCE — AMNESTY — NOT ENOUGH. 353 

Here, then, is another reason for your being stead- 
fast in adhering to the great doctrine of the resur- 
rection ; unmoved and immovable, by any plausible 
special pleading that would either deny it, or evade 
it, or refine upon it and explain it away, or repre- 
sent it as a matter of minor importance ; interesting, 
perhaps, and entertaining for the speculations to 
which it may give rise as to the nature of the hap- 
piness to be enjoyed hereafter, but having little or no 
practical bearing on your present spiritual life. Its 
bearing upon your present spiritual life you will 
now feel to be direct and strong, at least if you care 
for your life being a life that stands on the footing 
of a legal acquittal and a legal justification. 

If, indeed, you are indifferent to that considera- 
tion — if you can be satisfied with the notion of God's 
dealing with you in some other way than according 
to law; giving you mere impunity and indulgence, 
letting you alone, letting you off; suffering you, in 
a sort of negligent or contemptuous pity, to pick up 
the crumbs that fall from the servants' table ; — if 
such a life, if such a hope will content you, you can 
afford to let the resurrection go ; you can do without 
it; you can do, in fact, without any gospel, or any 
faith. Or if you can imagine that God deals with 
you according to some sort of self-acting principle 
of love, working itself out in Christ's history and in 
your own, without respect to the claims and sanc- 
tions of sovereign authority, and a government by 
moral law ; if you conceive of him as acting towards 
you exclusively in the character of a gracious pater- 
nal disciplinarian, and not in the character of a ruler 

30* 



354 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

and judge; — then in that case also, you may fail to 
see how the belief of the resurrection so nearly con- 
cerns your standing before God, and your peace 
with God. 

But neither of these suppositions describes your 
case. You are in earnest; you are anxious, not 
merely about your ultimate escape from wrath, but 
about your present enjoyment of the divine favor. 
You desire not merely to be on terms of compro- 
mise, or a sort of decent understanding with God, 
but to be at peace with him on terms of clearest, and 
closest, and fullest reconciliation. And you now 
deeply feel that this can be the result only of a judi- 
cial act; an act of legal justification. For the law, 
imposing death as the penalty of sin, and demand- 
ing righteousness as the condition of life, has taken 
hold upon you. The Spirit has brought it home to 
you. You perceive that God must treat you accord- 
ing to that law. You yourselves would have it so. 
An illegal, or extra-legal, — an extra-judicial settle- 
ment of the controversy between God and you, 
would not be enough for you. You know it to be 
impossible. But even if it were possible, you feel 
that it would be unsatisfying. You must get rid of 
that death which the law imposes as the penalty of 
sin. You must get possession of that righteousness 
which the law requires as the condition of life. An 
act of amnesty will not now do. It must be an act 
of acquittal, of acceptance, of justification. Hence 
he who would save you by taking your place must 
be one who not only bears for you the penal death, 
but brings in for you a justifying righteousness. 



THE INTERMEDIATE STATE — REST. 355 

Such a Saviour is Christ, the risen Lord. And he 
is so only as the risen Lord. 

"Therefore be ye steadfast and unmovable" in 
cleaving to him. Be ye always steadfast and im- 
movable in believing that "he died for your sins, 
and rose again for your justification." 

Once more, in the fourth place, for its bearing 
upon your holiness of character, and your diligence 
in duty, you do well to be steadfast and immovable 
in your belief of this doctrine of the resurrection. 

It is that belief which identifies to you the life 
that now is, and the life that is to come. They are 
no more twain, but one. They may seem to be sep- 
arated by an intervening gulf or space. The in- 
terval, it may be of ages, during which the soul or 
spirit dwells apart in rest and blessedness, while the 
body, its companion and minister, lies in the silent 
tomb, comes between the present and the final state 
of man. "What that intermediate state is — how the 
spirit, absent from the body and present with the 
Lord, lives there, — what are its consciousnesses, 
what its experiences — what its activities — you cannot 
tell. There is no express revelation to enlighten you 
with regard to it ; and analogy or inference, founded 
on parables or visions, may deceive you. It is enough 
to know that to depart is to be with Christ. It is 
enough to hear the voice of Jesus, as your spirit 
wings its flight hence and heavenward, " To-day 
shalt thou be with me in paradise." 

But if you dwell much in thought on that purely 
spiritual or incorporeal mode of being, do you not 
find yourselves apt to sever it, in your conceptions 



356 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

and musings, from the ongoings and the doings of 
this present e very-day working world ? In measure, 
that may be good. It may minister to a sort of 
sabbatic stillness ; — making a seasonable break, and 
solemn pause, in the tumult and bustle of the rest- 
less crowd. The intermediate state itself may be 
designed to serve some such purpose in the case of 
those who fall asleep in Jesus ; and frequent medi- 
tation on it, within due limits, may be a profitable 
as well as a placid and peaceful exercise of soul now. 
But if you continue long to make it your exclusive 
subject of meditation, are you not tempted to lapse 
into an ideal, unreal, visionary mood of mind ? And 
is it not the tendency of your indulging such a mood 
of mind, to foster the too common habit of divorc- 
ing spiritual thoughts and feelings from the ordi- 
nary business of life ? Religion becomes a senti- 
ment to be caressed and fondled in the hours of ab- 
straction from the world, and secluded contempla- 
tion and devotion ; not a principle that is to rough 
it amid the wear and tear of the world's throngest 
thoroughfares and busiest market-places and fairs. 

If it were to serve no other purpose than that of 
counteracting any leaning to such a habit of mind, 
a steadfast and immovable grasp of the resurrection 
and the resurrection-life is all-important. The in- 
termediate state may be, and probably will be, one 
of seclusion, and as regards the outer world, one of 
repose. The blessed dead who die in the Lord rest 
from their labors. Their earthly toils and troubles 
are at an end, and for a season, it may be, they are 
in the bosom of God with his beloved Son, enjoying 
holy fellowship with the Father and the Son, in the 



THE FINAL STATE — WORK. 357 

Holy Spirit, undistracted, — shall I say ? — and undis- 
turbed, by former earthly memories, and not yet in- 
troduced to the activities of the eternal world. It 
is to their spirits a holy sabbath of rest ; fitly pre- 
paring them for what is yet before them. They wait 
for the resurrection. Then, properly speaking, come 
judgment, and retribution, and reward. Then is the 
life which they lived in the body resumed. Then 
open discoveries are made ; and broken threads of 
thought and of action are caught up. 

It is the hope of this resurrection that stamps a 
character of sacred importance on all that you now 
think, and say, and do, in the body. It is that pros- 
pect which identifies the pursuits and habits of time, 
with the pursuits and habits of eternity. You 
"shuffle off this mortal coil." But it is only for a 
season. You are to begin again to live in the body. 
And how you are then to live in the body, will turn 
upon how you are living in the body now. What 
you are making yourselves now, by the things you 
are now doing in the body, — that you must be then, 
and must continue to be through everlasting ages. 

A belief which has such bearings as those now 
suggested ; — touching, first, the apostolic testimony 
and the divine authority of the Lord, — secondly, his 
great work of propitiation, — thirdly, the standing 
of the believer as justified in the sight of God, — and 
fourthly, the sanctification of his bodily nature and 
earthly condition ; — that, surely, is not a belief to be 
easily let go. It is the sheet-anchor of your faith, 
and holiness, and hope. 



DISCOURSE XX. 

Always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
your labor is not in vain in the Lord. — 1 Corinthians xv. 58. 

rflHIS is a description, either of what you must 
-*- be, if you are to be steadfast and immovable ; 
or of what you will be, if you are steadfast and im- 
movable. It may be taken either way. " Be stead- 
fast, immovable, always abounding in the work of 
the Lord." You cannot otherwise be steadfast and 
immovable than as you are always abounding in 
the work of the Lord. That is one reading of the 
exhortation. " Be steadfast, unmovable, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord." Being stead- 
fast and immovable, you will certainly abound al- 
ways in the work of the Lord. That is another 
fair construction of the passage. In either view ; 
whether your always abounding in the work of 
the Lord, is put here as the condition of your 
being steadfast and immovable, or as the conse- 
quence of your being steadfast and immovable ; — 
and the difference is not material ; — the duty itself 
is clearly enough described. It is to be about the 
work of the Lord ; to abound in it ; and to abound 
in it always. And the motive is plainly urged : 
" forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in 
vain in the Lord." 



what is the work of god ? 359 

Part First. — The Duty — "Always abounding in 
the work of the lord." 

The duty which, is connected with your being 
steadfast and immovable in the faith of the resur- 
rection, and of the resurrection-life, is, — I. To be 
about the work of the Lord, — II. To abound in it, — 
and III. To abound in it always. 

I. Your duty is to be about the work of the Lord ; 
to be occupied in it; to make it your work. 

" What shall we do," said the Jews on one occa- 
sion to Jesus, "that we might work the works of 
God?" "This is the work of God," is the reply, 
"that ye believe on him whom he has sent," (John 
vi. 28, 29.) And from what follows, it is plain that 
this means your receiving or embracing in the exer- 
cise of an appropriating faith ;■ — making your own ; 
— and using as your own ; — Christ as the true bread 
from heaven, given to you by his Father; the bread 
of God coming down from heaven, and giving life 
to the world ; — " I am the bread of life ; he that 
cometh unto me shall never hunger; and he that 
believeth on me shall never thirst." It is your 
coming to him in that character, as the bread of 
life, on the faith of his own assurance: "Him that 
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out;" and on 
the faith also of that other assurance of his: "I came 
down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the 
will of him that sent me; — and this is the Father's 
will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath 
given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up 



360 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

again at the last day; — and this is the will of him 
that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, 
and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: 
and I will raise him np at the last day," — (38-40.) 
These last statements assnre you of the Son's faith- 
fulness to his Father, as the former assures you of 
his love to you. And on the faith of both assur- 
ances, you see the Son, and believe on him as the 
Saviour in whom you have everlasting life ; who can 
lose nothing of all which the Father hath given him ; 
who will raise you up at the last day. This, then, 
is the work of God, your thus believing on him 
whom God hath sent. 

And, indeed, rightly considered and fully realized, 
this is the whole work of God. It involves in it all 
that he would have you to be doing. For it is not 
merely a single isolated act; or an act repeated at 
intervals as occasion requires. In one view it is so. 
In your distress of conscience you come to Christ at 
first. The Holy Spirit opens your eyes to behold 
him, as the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
sins of the world. You believe, the Lord helping 
your unbelief; and you have peace in believing. So 
also afterwards, under the pressure of the fresh guilt 
which you are ever contracting, and the indwelling 
sin that is ever vexing you, how often are you driven 
to do again the first work ; fain to cling, as at the 
first, to that gracious word of promise : "Him that 
cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." This 
must be the frequent acting of your faith. But this 
is not its only acting. This is not strictly speaking 
the proper, at least it is not the whole work of faith ; 



HOW CHRIST DID THE WORK OF GOD. 361 

— of that faith which, appropriating Christ as yours, 
unites you to Christ as his. The work of God which 
you work, when you believe on him whom he has 
sent, is your identifying Christ with yourselves, and 
yourselves with Christ ; and that, too, with reference 
to whatever his being "sent by God" implies; — 
with reference to all that "doing of the will of him 
that sent him," for which "he came down from 
heaven." 

And what is that will of him that sent him ? It 
has respect to "all that the Father hath given him." 
And it comprehends whatever is needed to secure 
that "of all which the Father hath given him, he 
shall lose nothing, but shall raise it up again at the 
last day." 

This is his work on earth. This is that business 
of his Father, which as the Son, he must be about. 
It is this : that as sent by his Father, and doing his 
Father's will, he shall see to it, on the one hand, 
that of all that the Father giveth him, none shall be 
lost; and orrthe other hand, that all shall be ripened 
for resurrection at the last day. In obedience to the 
Father, he has so to live, and act, and suffer, that 
none of the Father's little ones, given in charge to 
him, shall perish; but that they shall all be kept 
safe and made meet for everlasting glory." 

Is not this the key to the whole of Christ's charac- 
ter and life on earth ? 

First, there is the great ruling principle, or master 

motive ;— obedience to the Father ; the doing, not of 

his own will, but of the will of him that sent him. 

Nothing that he undertakes is at his own hand ; or 

31 



362 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

upon any mere impulse of his own, however disin- 
terested and generous. It is all obedience; not a 
spontaneous outburst of feeling; but a simple ser- 
vice of duty. True it is a service for which he volun- 
teers himself; — "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God!" 
But it is a service nevertheless; and nothing more; 
nothing else. He is obedient even unto his death. 
His death itself is obedience. 

Next, under the constraining power of that ruling 
principle, that master motive; — in obedience to the 
Father, and as doing the Father's will ; — he cares for 
those for whom the Father cares ; that through no 
fault or failure of his, any of them may be lost ; that 
by his means all of them may attain to life now, and 
to resurrection at the last day. This was to him the 
work of the Lord ; a service of loyalty to God, first 
and primarily, — but at the same time a service of 
love to man. 

And is not the work of the Lord the same to you? 
What, in this view, is your calling in Christ? Is it 
not to subordinate and sacrifice your oWn will to the 
will of God? Is it not, in the first place, to make a 
surrender of yourselves to God and become obe- 
dient; ready, as sent by him, to do his will? And 
under that high aim, is it not to see to it that none 
of his little ones suffer damage or loss through you; 
nay, that through you they may be helped on to 
glory? Is not that your calling ? Is it not to that 
sort of life that you are summoned as fellow-laborers 
with Christ? Is not that to you the work of the 
Lord? 

II. Your duty is to abound in the work of the 



SUPEREROGATION. 363 

Lord. It is a work in which you may abound with 
all safety even to overflowing, or as it were to excess. 
For the expression in the original is a strong one. 
It suggests the idea almost of surplusage or super- 
fluity ; — your not merely coming up to the amount 
or quantity required, but even actually going be- 
yond it. 

But what ! is there then, after all, such a thing as 
a work of supererogation ? May I so abound in the 
work of the Lord, as not only to do what is barely 
sufficient to enable me to pass muster as not a de- 
faulter, but to do more than that ; — to add what may 
enable me to accumulate a stock of merit, available 
for myself if I should afterwards fall short, or for 
others for whom, if warmly importuned, I may 
choose to intercede ? 

There may be room for this notion, if, in doing 
the work of the Lord, I am considered, or consider 
myself, to be profiting or obliging him ; — or if my 
service is of the nature of a mercenary bargain, or 
a compact for hire, in terms of which I am bound 
to do a certain amount of work for him who hires 
me, and am at liberty, that being done, to work for 
myself. In that case, if of my own accord I still 
offer, as a volunteer, to go on working for him, do- 
ing more than is stipulated for in the bond, I estab- 
lish a claim of merit, and treasure up a store of super- 
fluous good deserts on which I may at another time 
draw. But that is not the footing on which I am 
engaged in the service and work of the Lord. It is 
not the footing on which he who is at once my 
proxy and pattern in it, my substitute and my ex- 



364 LIFE IN A KISEN SAVIOUR. 

ample — the Son, the Saviour, — was himself engaged 
in it. 

When he took upon himself the form of a ser- 
vant, he did not simply agree to render in our stead 
a certain limited measure of obedience to the Fa- 
ther, such as might occupy only a portion of his 
time and strength, leaving him the option of devot- 
ing the rest, as it might please him, to the doing 
either of 'his own will or of the Father's; and giv- 
ing him the opportunity, if he still chose to do the 
Father's will, when he might have been doing his 
own, of acquiring even a higher degree of merit 
than was needed to meet the case. That is not the 
manner of Christ ; it is not thus that he serves the 
Father. There is nothing of the nature of superero- 
gation in any part of the work which he does. It 
is itself, indeed, in one view, all a work of superero- 
gation together, not required from him on his own 
account, and therefore all available for you. But it 
is as one whole that it is thus available for you. It 
is not his undertaking to give so much obedience, 
and no more, that saves you, but his becoming obe- 
dient. It was not at any point at which he might 
arrive during his life, in the course of his doing the 
will of him that sent him, — it was not till that life 
was closing, — that he was to be in a condition to say 
conclusively, concerning the work given him to do, 
" It is finished." 

If, therefore, he abounded in the work of the 
Lord, it was still as a servant ; aye, and in the strict- 
est sense, "an unprofitable servant;" not going be- 
yond what might be required of him as a servant, 



MY GOODNESS EXTENDETH NOT TO THEE. 365 

but simply " doing that which it was his duty to 
do." (Luke xvii. 10.) For in his voluntarily assum- 
ed position of a servant, even the Son must have 
felt, and did feel, as the Psalmist felt when he ex- 
claimed, " my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, 
Thou art my Lord ; my goodness extendeth not to 
thee." (Psalm xvi. 2.) It is no profit to thee. It is 
no more than the mere payment of a debt, the ful- 
fillment of an obligation, the rendering to thee of 
what is thy due. 

If it be so even in his case, how much more in 
ours. For "the disciple is not above his master." 
With the master, every one of us may well acknow- 
ledge ; — and that too, not with reference to our 
shortcomings in the Lord's service, but with refer- 
ence to the service itself; — when "we have done 
all those things which are commanded us ;" — " I am 
an unprofitable servant ; I have done that which was 
my duty to do ;" that and no more. " Thou art my 
Lord; my goodness extendeth not to thee." 

" To the saints that are in the earth, and to the 
excellent, in whom is all my delight," (Psalm xvi. 
3,) my goodness may in a measure reach. I may 
have the satisfaction of thinking that in the good 
which I am enabled by grace to do, I benefit or profit 
them ; — not restricting my good offices, in my inter- 
course with them, to what they might be held enti- 
tled peremptorily to demand, but giving full and 
free scope to the overflowing of my good will. So 
may one feel who is abounding in the work of the 
Lord. It is a feeling, however, which must be kept 
in check, lest it tempt him to think too highly of 

31* 



366 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Ms own generosity, and to make too low an estimate 
of his neighbor's just rights. 

In the bosom of Christ, the feeling might have 
place, unchecked. To men on the earth, his good- 
ness, — his redeeming love, — with the fruit of it, — 
is all matter of grace and profit ; not matter of debt 
at all. 

But still, even the Son, as the servant of the Fa- 
ther, however he may abound in the Father's work, 
cannot say to him, — "It is a gift whereby thou art 
profited by me." No ; it is no more than the work 
given me to do ; it is no more than I was bound and 
obliged to do. * 

That being Christ's attitude in doing the work of 
the Lord, — you, as one with him, must realize it as 
yours. You do the Lord's work as servants. But 
though you do it as servants, it is not in a servile, 
grudging spirit that you do it. You do it heartily, 
as unto the Lord. You do it lovingly, honorably, 
and liberally. You abound in it. Yours is not an 
eye-service; nor a bond-service. You say, " Lord, 
truly I am thy servant ; I am thy servant, and the 
son of thine handm aid : thou hast loosed my bonds. ' ' 
You serve not a master whom you- dread, and with 
whom you try to make terms, but a Father whom 
you love. You serve him freely ; the Son himself 
making you free. You may well therefore abound 
in his work. 

Especially when you consider what that work is. 
It is your entering into the work of the Son. It is 
your doing what in you lies to prevent loss or dam- 
age to any of the little ones given to him by the 



WE ARE UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS. 367 

Father. It is your doing what in you lies to help 
on their spiritual life now, and their preparation for 
the life to which they are to he raised at the last 
day. 

In such a work, undertaken in obedience to such 
a Lord, you cannot abound too much. You cannot 
go too far in any sacrifices you may make ; any toil 
and trouble you. may undergo ; any pains you may 
take. For, on the one hand, you have to avoid all 
causes of offence, — removing all stumbling-blocks 
out of the way, shunning all appearance of evil, 
denying yourself more than may seem needful, for 
a brother's sake, if not for your own. And, on the 
other hand, you have to bring all influences of all 
sorts — a holy life, a consistent testimony, an exem- 
plary walk, words in season, deeds of kindness, acts 
of generous liberality, miracles of mercy, meek per- 
suasive lessons of affection, — you have to bring all 
such sorts of influence to bear oh all sorts of men, if 
by any means sinners maybe won to accept present 
grace, and saints may be animated on their way to 
glory. 

You cannot be too busy or too active, — you can- 
not be too zealous or too abundant, — in the work of 
the Lord; — if only you make conscience of abound- 
ing in it simply as servants. For surely you must 
be more and more deeply feeling that you never can 
go beyond what you owe to him whom you serve. 
Da what you may, and do what you can, you must 
still say, when all is done, "we are unprofitable 
servants, we have done that which was our duty to 
do." That only; nay, rather less than that. Less 



368 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

by far than might well be expected of us, to whom 
so much has been given, and of whom, reasonably 
and righteously, so much might be required. In 
this spirit of true loyalty and warm love, be ye 
"abounding in the work of the Lord." 

III. Your duty is to abound in the work of the 
Lord " always:" at all times. If it be in the right 
spirit, — if it be as faithful servants, doing not your 
own will but the Lord's, — if it be thus that you are 
abounding in the work of the Lord, you will be 
abounding in it always ; at all times, and in all cir- 
cumstances. 

To be abounding in it only occasionally, — at inter- 
vals, or by fits and starts, — may be consistent with 
that mode of service which proceeds upon the idea 
of your somehow profiting God ; your being some- 
how in a condition to make a merit with him of 
what you do, or to make your own terms in doing 
it. You rouse yourself for a great exertion in the 
good cause. You will overcome your selfishness 
and indolence, your love of pleasure, your love of 
ease. You are determined to take some decided 
step, to do some great thing. You will school, 
chastise, and mortify yourselves. By a strong effort 
of faith, you will become Christ's. You are bent 
upon occupying a foremost rank among those who 
cleave to his person, and espouse his cause. There 
is a glow of enthusiasm, an ardor of affection in 
your devotions ; and there is no end to your activi- 
ties, your liberalities, your charities. 

Alas! it is all but for a season. The excitement 



INDECISION THE FATAL SNARE. 369 

wears off. You grow listless and weary. You surely 
may allow yourself a little repose and relaxation. 
You have worked enough to entitle you to rest 
awhile. If your zeal flags, and your love grows 
cold, it is a natural and excusable reaction from the 
high fever you have been in. You were, perhaps, 
overdoing your religion ; becoming righteous over- 
much ; abounding to excess in the work of the Lord. 
At all events, you have a right to exercise a certain 
discretion, and pause awhile, that you may look to 
your own interests, before resuming again that self- 
denying style of Christian life and labor, and that 
self-forgetting scale of Christian expenditure, which, 
perhaps, you were in danger of carrying too far. 

So you may be tempted to think and feel, if, while 
you are abounding in the work of the Lord, you are 
abounding in it rather as ultroneous benefactors, 
than as loyal servants ; — moved by the spontaneous 
impulse of your own free choice, rather than render- 
ing obedience ; doing your own will, at least as much 
as the will of him who sends you. If it be in such 
a spirit that you are abounding in the work of the 
Lord, — your abounding in it is apt to be fitful and 
capricious; not steady, uniform, and constant. In- 
sensibly you are tempted, to some extent, to make 
a merit of it. You take credit for it, and presume 
upon it, as giving you some title to use liberties 
with the work, and to be sometimes slack in it, and 
irregular. 

This is the reverse of being steadfast and immov- 
able. It infers vacillation in principle as well as in 
practice ; in doctrine as well as in duty. There is 



370 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

at the botom of it a secretly lurking tendency, to 
make occasional fits of " abounding in the work of 
the Lord" compensate for long intervals, and large 
measures, of remissness and indecision. 

Yes ! indecision is the fatal snare. Indecision is 
the cause of your either not abounding in the work 
of the Lord at all, — or abounding in it wilfully or 
way wardly. You treat it as if it were your own work, 
which you may take up and lay down at pleasure. 
But it is not so. It is the work of the Lord. It is 
the work of Christ, your Lord ; as much as his work 
was to him the work of his Lord, — his God and 
Father in heaven. 

Abound then, always, in this work of the Lord. 
It is the work of the Lord ; and therefore you may 
always abound in it. If it were any other work 
than the work of the Lord, you could not always 
abound in it. The work of the most gifted of work- 
men on earth; the work of the most successful mer- 
chant, or of the most brilliant scholar, or of the most 
valiant soldier; is not a work in which you can 
always abound. In any of these works, or such 
works as these, you may abound sometimes. There 
is room and scope in every one of them for over- 
flowing energy and zeal. But there is not one of 
them whose most zealous votary would desire to 
be abounding in it always. The sameness and 
insipidity would be intolerable. Seasons of relief 
from it, — seasons when it may be suspended, and 
all thought about it may be held in abeyance, — are 
indispensable to the healthy action of all the bodily 
and mental powers. 



FELLOWSHIP WITH THE LORD IN HIS WORK. 371 

It is the distinctive character, — the criterion and 
test, — the glory of the work of the Lord, that it is 
the work in which you may abound always. For it 
is not, like these other works, only occasionally in 
season. To one who abounds in it, it is always 
seasonable. It admits of all varieties of adaptation. 
It is a work — the work of the Lord — that can accom- 
modate itself to all circumstances, and be all things 
to all men, 

For, in fact, it can fit into any kind of work you 
can lawfully have, on hand. That work, whatever 
it may be, becomes for the time the work of the 
Lord. In every thing you do, you may be keeping 
steadily before your eyes the end of your calling, as 
fellow-laborers with the Lord, who came "to do the 
Father's will, that of all whom the Father giveth 
him, none may be lost, but all may be raised up at 
the last day." This sense of your fellowship with 
the Lord, in his great and blessed work of saving, 
and sanctifying, and glorifying, all whom the Father 
hath given him, may enter into every thing you think, 
and say, and do. Therefore, it is possible ; and if pos- 
sible, it is surely right; — to be '* always abounding 
in the work of the Lord.'' 

Part Second..— The Motive — "Forasmuch as ye 
know that your labor is not in vain in the 
Lord." 

It is in the Lord that your labor is not in vain ; — 
empty, or void of result and issue. You enter into 
the work of the Lord, as the Lord himself entered 



372 LIFE IN A KISEN SAVIOUR. 

into the work given him to do. You abound in 
that work of the Lord ;— -you labor and toil in it ; — 
because you know that your labor in it is not, as it 
were, a busy idleness, or a spending of your strength 
for nought. It "is not in vain in the Lord," in 
whose work it is that you labor. It is in his work 
that your labor is expended. It belongs to him to 
see to it that your labor in his work shall not be in 
vain. 

He is in a position to see to this. But he is so 
only in virtue of the resurrection ; his for you, and 
yours in him. Thus only is your labor in his work 
not in vain. 

I. It was thus only that his own labor in his own 
work, or in his Father's, was not in vain. Were 
there no resurrection, it would have been in vain. 

To what purpose did he toil in the work given him 
to do ; toil even to sweat and blood of body, and un- 
told agony of spirit ; if there was to be for him, and 
for his, no resurrection — to attest the complete suc- 
cess of his labor, and to gather in its blessed fruit ? 
Nay, as regards himself alone, what must we have 
thought if he had gone from this earth, leaving his 
body unrecovered, — and irrecoverably lost, — in 
earth's dust and ashes ? 

He takes our nature, body as well as spirit. He 
extricates a part of it— -what is spiritual in us ; and 
he carries it, with his own spirit, into some un- 
known spiritual home. Thereafter he. carries us 
home, one by one,— that is, the spiritual part of 
each one of us which is set free at death, — to be 



NO VICTORY — NO REDEMPTION. 373 

with him there. But the bodily part, ours and his, 
is lost. 

Could the Lord Jesus himself, on that supposition, 
be said to have reaped, in his own person, the fruit 
of his labor in the work given him to do ? 

He comes in your nature ; and in your stead he 
grapples with death — death armed with sin as his 
sting. So far death prevails. The pale and livid 
body is wrenched away from the spirit. The spirit 
is commended by the great sufferer into the Father's 
hands ; the body is consigned to the tomb. If there 
be no resurrection, that is all. And if that is all, 
what is it for Christ ? It is no triumph ; no victory. 
It is, at the best, a compromise, a dividing of the 
spoil. And it fixes a great gulf, as regards even 
Christ himself, between his temporary human life 
on earth, and his subsequent human life of immor- 
tality in heaven. He has passed through this earth- 
ly state in an earthly body. He leaves the earthly 
body, and with it the earthly state, behind. He 
carries nothing with him of his earthly and bodily 
tears, and groans, and agonies, and cries. The line, 
or thread, of continuity between his experience on 
earth and his experience in heaven is fatally broken. 
His experience in heaven is no longer that of a min- 
istry of intercession and government, connected, by 
the consciousness of thorough personal identity, 
with the experience of a ministry of obedience and 
sacrifice on earth. He is not now, in heaven, the 
same man Christ Jesus that he was on earth. There 
is nothing now in him, or about him, of what allied 
him to earth. It is an escape, and not a redemption, 
62 



374 LIFE IN A KISEN SAVIOUR. 

that he has effected. He has got rid of earth, and 
got away from it ; he has not reconquered or recov- 
ered it. He has eliminated and drawn forth a suhtle 
and ethereal spiritual element of immortality, out 
of the gross matter of which this earth and its ani- 
mals are composed. He has done so, by leaving, as 
regards himself and his redeemed, the earthly state 
and the corporeal life to perish hopelessly, — to perish 
for ever. 

Surely, oiie would say, a redemption like that 
might have been accomplished without such travail 
of soul as the Redeemer had to bear. It is a re- 
demption which implies no expiation of guilt ; no 
reversal of its sentence ; no endurance of its penal- 
ty. It. is simply the extrication of the better part 
of Christ's human nature, and of ours in him, from 
that material portion of it which perisheth, and from 
the material earth in which it perishes. It is the 
transference and translation of that better part, to 
some sphere, or some state, into which nothing of the 
material earth, or the material body, may intrude. 

If that is all, I say again that to a large extent 
Christ has lived, and labored, and died in vain. 
There was no need of such toil as he had to under- 
go ; and there is now no fruit of it. He is not now, 
in that body in which he bled, within the veil. He 
is not, bodily, at the right hand of God. 

What motive, then, — what inducement had he to 
labor as he did, bodily, in the work and business of 
his Father, " to endure such contradiction of sin- 
ners against himself," "to endure the cross, despis- 
ing the shame?" Where, in connection with all 



CHRIST STANDING FOR JUDGMENT. 375 

that, is "the joy set before him," if it is nothing 
more than the passing of his pure spirit into his Fa- 
ther's hands, leaving all that is earthly and bodily 
behind for ever ? That might be a relief; an escape. 
It could be no recompense ; no reward. It would 
be oblivion of labor ; — not requital. 

The labor of Christ, in the work given him to do, 
was not thus in vain. His work followed him. In 
his resurrection, and after his resurrection, he gath- 
ered up, and is still gathering up, the fruit of it. 
He resumed it when he rose from the dead. He not 
merely received an acknowledgment of the work ; 
he resumed the very work itself. 

He might have received an acknowledgment of 
the work, altogether apart from any resuming of the 
work itself ; — his human spirit being, in conse- 
quence of it, blessed in some spiritual region, in 
which there could be nothing in common with what 
he had done or suffered in the body. In some such 
way he might have been the better for his labor in 
that work; the better able to save. But his labor 
itself would have perished and been in vain. There 
would have been a new thread of existence to him ; 
not the taking up of the old. It is his bodily resur- 
rection that links and fastens on Christ's life in 
heaven now with his former life on earth ; and 
makes it plain that his labor during that former life, 
in the work of his Father, has not been in vain. 

No. It is not in vain. He has not toiled, and 
suffered, and bled, in the body, in vain. 

For, in the first place, he has gone, in that very 
body; the same man precisely that he was on earth; 



376 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

the same man complete; to present himself before 
the Father, whose will he has done, and whose work 
he has finished, saying, "Behold I and the children," 
the little ones "whom thou hast given me." He 
carries to the presence-chamber, or, as it were, the 
judgment-hall, of his righteous Father, the body 
which the Father prepared for him, and his whole 
labor and travail of soul in that body. And he asks 
sentence to be passed on himself in that body, and 
on what he has done and suffered in that body. He 
asks for a judicial award. The mere bettering of 
his condition as a natural consequence and gracious 
owning of his past and forgotten history, will not 
suffice. He asks for a verdict on that history, as a 
history not buried in oblivion's indulgent tomb, but 
raised for righteous judgment. 

Thy will was done ; was it well done ? Thy work 
was finished ; was it finished satisfactorily ? I stand, 
the very person who did thy will and finished thy 
work, I stand for judgment. It is not a part of me, 
my spirit escaped out of my body, that craves a 
stealthy and unchallenged passage to some refuge 
or receptacle of shivering naked souls. It is I my- 
self, whole and entire, in the body in which I did 
thy will and finished thy work, who stand for open 
judgment. 

And then again, secondly, his labor is not in vain, 
since not only, in his risen body, does he challenge 
judgment upon himself and his work, — but in that 
same risen body he takes the work up, and follows 
it out. He carries on in heaven the work which he 
had on hand on earth. In one sense, indeed, that 



CHRIST CARRYING OUT HIS WORK. 377 

work was finished here. It was finished as to all its 
toil and pain. But 

" He who for men their surety stood, 
And pour'd on earth his precious blood, 
Pursues in heaven his mighty plan, 
The Saviour and the friend of man.'' 

This then was the Lord's high motive and en- 
couragement, as on earth, being steadfast and 
immovable, he always abounded in the work of 
his Father; abounded in it even to tears, and blood, 
and death; this double joy. First, he is to rise 
again; — that he himself in the body, and his labor 
in the body in the Father's work, may be judged 
and justified. Secondly, he is to rise again, that he 
may resume the work. He resumes it, with all the 
sympathies and sensibilities of the human nature 
which he had on earth entire and unchanged. In 
his ministry of intercession, in his sending the Com- 
forter, in his ruling over all, in his preparing a place 
for us in his Father's house, and in his coming again 
to receive us to himself, — he resumes the work which 
he finished, as to its earthly part, when he died. He 
resumes it that he may carry it out to its endless 
issues of blessedness and glory, in the new heavens 
and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
Thus, for this double reason, the Lord's labor in the 
work given him to do, is, in virtue of his resurrec- 
tion, not in vain. 

II. And as the Lord's own labor in the work is 
thus not in vain; so yours is not in vain in him. 
And that too for the same twofold reason. 

32* 



378 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

Ill the first place, you and your labor in the work 
of the Lord, are openly judged and finally justified. 
You appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. The 
judgment is by works ; — or rather the judgment is 
of works. You are judged by your works ; that is, 
your works themselves are judged; your abundant 
labor in the work of the Lord. That day will test 
and try the labor of every man; what, and of what 
worth, it ha& been. 

"All things here are full of labor; man cannot 
utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the 
ear filled with hearing," (Eccl. i. 8.) Sometimes, 
even in this world, the labor is felt to be very weary, 
and, alas, very vain; and one is forced to say: "I 
hated life ; because the work that is wrought under 
the sun is grievous unto me ; for all is vanity and 
vexation of spirit. Yea, I hated all my labor which 
I had labored under the sun. For what hath man 
of all his labor, and of the vexation of his heart, 
wherein he has labored under the sun?" (Eccl. ii. 
17-22.) 

Still the weary labor goes on. "All things are 
full of labor." And, alas! for the most part, what- 
ever complaints may fall from them in seasons of 
despondency, it is not in the present life that men 
fully discover how utterly their labor is in vain. It 
would be better for them if it were ; — better now, 
than in that judgment of the resurrection-day. 

In what work is your labor expended? In what 
work, or in whose, is your labor abundant? In your 
own? In the world's? In the devil's? Is it for 
yourselves that you are living and laboring? Or for 



TO WHOM DID YOU DO IT? 379 

the world? Or for the world's prince? Is it in the 
work of heaping np riches, or winning renown, or 
pleasing men, or gratifying your own lusts, your 
own tastes, your own feelings, — is it in any such 
work that your lahor is abundant? Will your labor 
in any work like these, be owned by the Judge in 
that day? Will he acknowledge it as having any 
thing in common with his own labor; that labor of 
his which is resurrection attested and crowned ? 

It is only in the Lord, that any labor can then be 
owned and acknowledged as "not in vain." And 
therefore bear in mind that there may be labor of 
another sort even than these, that will not stand the 
test. Your labor may be abundant even in a good 
thing. It may be labor abounding in the work of 
beneficence ; or in the work of religion. And yet it 
may not be labor that can be accepted, as "not in 
vain in the Lord." For it may be labor in a good 
work, as a work of self-righteousness, or a work of 
self-pleasing; a work of penance, or a work of merit; 
a work of party ; a work of the church ; a work of 
of your own: not labor in that good work, as the 
work of the Lord. 

To whom did ye do it ? — will be the question then. 
Did ye do it unto me ? 

O be sure that what is done unto the Lord cannot 
be in vain in the Lord. Nothing of all that is given 
to him ; or done in his name ; or suffered, or sacri- 
ficed, or surrendered for his sake ; can ever be lost. 
Be the gift ever so small, — the widow's mite cast 
into the treasury, or the cup of cold water held out 
to one of Christ's little ones ; be the deed ever so 



380 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

humble, — ministering to a poor saint, or a perishing 
sinner, — washing the feet of a disciple, — speaking 
a word in season to a weary soul ; be the suffering, 
the sacrifice, the surrender, ever so trifling, — petty 
persecution meekly endured, — " a soft answer turn- 
ing away wrath;" — a domestic trial of temper pa- 
tiently and kindly met, — your own will given up to 
please a brother for the Lord's sake ; — nothing given, 
or done, or suffered for the Lord, — for the love you 
bear him, — for the love wherewith he loveth you, — 
can fail of its reward in that day. 

And, the brightness, the blessedness of the re- 
ward ? You hear the Lord before all angels and all 
men, bringing to your remembrance long-forgotten 
passages in your lowly walk of faith on the earth. 
He surprises you, as he recounts instances of love 
and labor in his work, which you deemed unworthy 
of notice and remembrance; and you discover the 
full meaning of that gracious assurance, " God is 
not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of 
love." 

But, secondly, you are raised up at the last day 
that you may resume your labor in the work of the 
Lord, in which here you abound always. You re- 
sume it in circumstances widely different. It will 
not be the same kind of labor. But it will be labor 
in the same work of the Lord; labor without 
fatigue or failure ; without groans and tears. When 
the Lord himself took up again in heaven the work 
which he had finished on earth ; which he had fin- 
ished as to its earthly conditions ; it was in a new 



"THEIR works do follow them." 381 

sphere, and under new conditions altogether. His 
labor .here in that work was a labor of humiliation, 
suffering, and shame. It is not so now. It is in 
glory that he takes it up an( ^ follows it out ; not 
with visage marred, and having no form or comeli- 
ness ; despised and rejected of men ; stricken, smit- 
ten of God and afflicted ; but owned and honored 
as the Son of God with power, by God himself and 
all his holy ones. It is not as a lowly servant ; a 
doomed criminal; a dying victim; but as the' king 
reigning in righteousness, that he carries on that 
work in heaven. And you are to reign with him. 
You are to be with him where he is. You are to 
behold his glory; the glory which the Father giveth 
him, for the love wherewith he loved him before the 
w r orld was. Your labor in the work of the Lord, 
wdien you thus resume it in the Lord, will take its 
character from the position of him in whom you re- 
sume it. And therefore it will be in many respects 
different from what it is now. But the spirit of it 
will be the same. The same loyalty, the same love, 
the same alacrity, and activity, and overflowing zeal, 
— which now find scope in the work of the Lord, as 
now you abound in it, amid much tribulation, and 
many disappointments, and persecutions, and heart- 
breaking anxieties and fears, — will be called into 
exercise in the same work of the Lord then ; — only 
it will be under happier auspices, and with more sa- 
tisfying issues. 

Yes ! you may be very sure that no habit of obe- 
dience, — whether it be fidelity, enthusiasm, per- 
severance, hope, love, or joy, — which you are now 



382 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

cultivating, as you abound in the work of the Lord, 
will then be found to have been cultivated in vain. 

If indeed you were not to live again in the body; 
if your final and ultimate perfection were the un- 
broken rest of your spirit in the bosom of God ; the 
repose of the absorption, as it were, of your spirit 
into the great Spirit that fills the universe ; then 
much of your labor in the work of the Lord might 
seem to be thrown away. In such a future, there 
would be no call or occasion, no room indeed, for 
many of those qualities that are exercised now, amid 
the activities of your bodily state and your earthly 
service. 

But you know that this is not the future before 
you. You know that new heavens and a new earth 
are coming. You know that you are to serve God 
there in the body; abounding there, as here, in the 
work of the Lord. And therefore you know as- 
suredly that no labor of yours now, — no habit of 
labor, — in the work of the Lord, is or can be in vain 
in the Lord. 

These, then, are the two objects on which, in look- 
ing forward to the resurrection, the eye of faith 
should rest; the final judgment and the eternal 
state. 

I. You rise to appear in the body before the judg- 
ment-seat of Christ, to give account of the deeds 
done in the body. It is the day of dread disclosure, 
— of a fiery trial of discovery. Your works follow 
you, and are beside you, at the bar. The books are 



"mercy of the lord in that day." 383 

opened. The record of your life, as the Lord has 
read and registered it, is unfolded. Who may stand 
the sight, — the shock? 

Absent from the body, and present with the Lord, 
your spirit has been resting in holy and happy com- 
placency, with no consciousness, probably, and no 
thought of things past, or of things without. E~ow 
all comes back again. Your earthly and bodily 
history is brought up once more ; brought up to be 
judged. Will it stand the judgment? Ah! how 
much of it will stand the judgment? How many 
things in it, — how many of its works, — will then 
appear to be as wood, hay, stubble, — fit only to be 
burned ! 

It was a good prayer that Paul offered for Onesi- 
phorus, — the best return for all his refreshing kind- 
ness, — " The Lord grant unto him that he may find 
mercy of the Lord in that day." It will be mercy 
then as now that I need. It will be as a debtor to 
mercy that I pass through that ordeal ; feeling my- 
self anew to be a debtor to mercy ; only then, for 
the first time, beginning to apprehend how deep my 
obligation to mercy is ! 

Yes ! I pass into that state into which the resur- 
rection and the judgment usher me, with a fresh 
sense and a fresh experience of the mercy which the 
Judge, through his endurance of the cross for me, 
has acquired a title to dispense from the throne; — 
as freely as they used to dispense it of old, when he 
proved his power on earth to forgive sins. It is as 
a forgiven sinner that I enter, in the body, upon my 
eternal life. It is mercy from the first, it is mercy 



384 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

to the last, that is to be the burden of my everlast- 
ing song. 

But the mercy which I pray the Lord that I may 
find in that day, is mercy reigning in righteousness. 
I humbly look for a sentence of acquittal and jus- 
tification. My hope is, that when he in whom I 
believe as my Saviour now, and who is to sit as my 
judge then, calls me before him in the body, he may 
see in me, and in my works ; — in me, for " by his 
grace I am what I am," — in my works, for "it is he 
that worketh in me both to will and to do;" — that 
which he may acknowledge before men and angels, 
as attesting the uprightness of my faith, and en- 
titling me to a gracious reward. 

Then, if that be my hope, let me give good heed 
to my life and my doings now. Let me make con- 
science of my inner life, and my outer doings, being 
more and more such as I would have to follow me 
to the judgment of the great day. Let me, with a 
holy ambition, strive to win the blessed sentence of 
warm welcome and approval — "Well done, good 
and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a 
few things, I will make thee ruler over many." 

II. You rise to enter, in the body, into the eternal 
state ; and into the eternal state your works follow 
you. The risen believer carries his earthly doings 
with him into his everlasting habitation and home. 
There, throughout eternity, his occupations are to 
be substantially the same with those in which on 
earth he found his delight. With the resurrection 
of the body, the active service of God is resumed, 



IDENTITY OF THE PRESENT AND FUTURE LIFE. 385 

and the avenues of communication witli things with- 
out are again opened up. Acquaintance is formed, 
on a new scale of indefinite enlargement, with the 
whole universe of the wondrous works of God. And 
in the society of the whole family in heaven and 
earth named of Christ, — in the fellowship of holy 
angels and redeemed men, — the risen saint has scope 
for the exercise of all his faculties of understanding, 
and all the social affections of his soul. Nothing 
that he has ever done, or learned to do on earth, is 
finally lost to him; "his works do follow him." His 
thoughts will then run in their wonted channel, his 
hands will he swift to ply their accustomed task. 

What differences there may be between the new 
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, and that which 
now is cursed for man's sin, in respect of the oppor- 
tunities and means of employment which they sever- 
ally afford, it would be vain and presumptuous to 
conjecture. Possibly there may be a closer analogy, 
approaching more nearly to identity, than many 
suppose. Of this at least we may be sure, that no 
pure taste cultivated here will want its appropriate 
food there ; no high and holy faculty exercised here 
will be without its congenial field of labor there. 

Take all the powers, whether of intellect or of 
feeling, which the soul exerts here, by means and 
through the instrumentality of the body, — all the 
sensibilities, and all the activities which connect a 
living man here below, with the things and persons 
around him. What is the leading principle — the 
ruling passion — the one single prevailing aim that 
pervades them all? What is their habitual bent 
33 



386 LIFE IN A 11ISEN SAVIOUR. 

and bias? Is it devotedness to God that animates 
them all? Then, assuredly, in the eternal world, 
there will be room enough for the renewed and en- 
hanced energy of them all. In this way, the works 
begun on earth, are taken up again, and carried on 
in heaven. Inquiries, which the saint when called 
suddenly away left unfinished, or but just begun, he 
will prosecute again, after an interval of holy seclu- 
sion and blessed rest; and prosecute, ah! how differ- 
ently ! For then, the soul that has been alone with 
God, reunited with the body that has cast off the 
corruption of sin and of the tomb, will be in a con- 
dition to range through all space with untiring wing ; 
to ransack the secrets, and solve the mysteries of 
eternity. Then, also, the duties which the servant 
of God delighted to discharge on earth, amid pains, 
and privations, and trials manifold — from which, 
nevertheless, he felt reluctance to be summoned by 
death away — he will in happier circumstances re- 
sume, and that for ever. With feet swift to run on 
God's errands, and to minister to God's people, he 
will stand beside the throne on high; his eye intent 
to catch the first indication of his Father's will ; his 
ear quick to learn the first tidings of any work any 
where to be done ; his loins girt for every race of 
duty, be it to the utmost verge of creation itself; — 
and his tongue, familiar with the melody of praise 
on earth, making heaven's arch ring with the song 
of Moses and of the Lamb. 



DISCOURSE XXI.* 

He will swallow up death in victory. — Isaiah xxv. 8. 

n^HIS prophetic oracle occurs in the bosom of 
- 1 - what is admitted to be one continuous pro- 
phecy, embracing four chapters, — the twenty-fourth 
to the twenty-seventh inclusive; — the first portion 
of which, reaching from the beginning of the twen- 
ty-fourth chapter to the eighth verse of the twenty- 
sixth, must be studied for the right understanding 
of the oracle. 

But while generally agreed in regarding these 
chapters as one entire prophetic poem, complete in 
itself, interpreters differ widely as to its application. 
In fact, scarcely any two of them are of the same 
mind. Every crisis in Jewish history, from Isaiah's 
time downwards, has been pressed into the service. 
The captivity at Babylon, with its issue ; the perse- 
cution under Antiochus Epiphanes, and the wars of 
the Maccabees ; the overthrow of Jerusalem, and 
the dispersion of the Jews by the Romans ; as well 
as other far less memorable eras ; — have been sing- 
led out as fulfilling, and even exhausting the pre- 
diction. Events, also, in modern European annals, 
have been laid hold of; — often strangely enough, as 

* The reason for adding this discourse is indicated at page 262. 



388 LIFE IN A EISEN SAVIOUK. 

if this oracular word of God were, like a drifting 
ship at sea, fain to take refuge in any harbor, were 
it but the narrowest of all German creeks ; or else, 
like a gallant vessel on the shoreless and ch artless 
deep, making an adventurous voyage to one knows 
not what varieties of millennial Arcadias and Para- 
disiacal isles of the blessed. 

A prophecy so plastic mignt seem fitted only to 
tantalize, were it not for the consideration that this 
very feature of it, its capacity of being adapted to 
so many, and such different, catastrophes in the di- 
vine government, shows it to have been intended to 
bring out rather the general principles of that gov- 
ernment than particular details. It is not meant to 
write history beforehand ; that is not the aim of pro- 
phecy. Its aim rather is to give the key to all his- 
tory. True ; it has its special historical allusions, 
and much of this prophecy may have been already 
historically fulfilled, perhaps more than once, as in 
the two dispersions, the Babylonian and the Roman. 
It was suggested also by the historical state of mat- 
ters in Judah at the time. It was meant to be an 
encouragement and directory to the Jewish people 
in the calamity then immediately impending, and 
in the deliverance from it which they were taught to 
expect. But it was meant, moreover, to be an en- 
couragement and directory to them in all subsequent 
calamities and deliverances ; and not to them only, 
but to the Christian church as well ; down to the 
end of time. 

Hence it is cast into a mould that will more or 
less closely fit different successive movements in the 



SCENES IN THE SHIFTING PANORAMA. 389 

march of providence. Ultimately, in fact, the pro- 
phet's eye is gazing on a far more awful crisis, and 
a far more glorious consummation, than either Jew- 
ish or Gentile history has ever brought forth out of 
the womb of time. It is in the light of the great 
spectacle of the end of the world that he views all 
intervening events. He sees them bathed in the 
effulgence of that full discovery of himself and that 
complete vindication and explanation of his ways, 
which in fierce wrath, and in richest love, the Lord 
is then to give. He sees them all, therefore, shaped 
after the same fashion, and tinged with the same 
hue. The vision is thus one. It is a vision of the 
kingdom of God, — the kingdom of heaven upon 
earth. 

Let the successive scenes in this shifting pan- 
orama be surveyed as they pass before the prophet's 
eye. 

The first scene occupies the first twelve verses of 
the twenty-fourth chapter. 

In the first place, it shows a territory empty and 
waste, (ver. 1 — 4.) The land, — for it seems to be a 
particular country that is here meant, and not the 
whole earth, — the land has been turned upside 
down ; it has, as it were, spilt and scattered its in- 
habitants of all ranks and classes, — of all conditions 
and callings. 

In the second place, the character of the inhabit- 
ants is described, (ver. 5.) They have been in cov- 
enant with God, placed under his laws and his ordi- 

33* 



390 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

nance. But they have not only transgressed the 
laws; they have deliberately tampered with and 
changed the ordinance. They have made void the 
word of God by their traditions. They have be- 
come apostates; all of them, all descriptions of 
them. Therefore the very soil which they tread is 
denied. 

In the third place, the disastrous issue is set forth 
at large, (ver. 6 — 11.) A curse overtakes the land. 
A blight seizes its fruits. Revelry and mirth cease. 
"War and famine come. There is a confused noise 
in the city. A brief, desperate struggle ensues ; the 
weary and wounded crying in vain in the streets for 
wine. Presently all is over. The stillness of utter 
ruin reigns. " In the city is left desolation, and the 
gate is smitten with destruction." 

II. The second scene is painted in the four verses 
which follow. It exhibits a remnant, as the shaking 
of an olive-tree, or as gleaning grapes after the vint- 
age. (13.) There is a handful of survivors scattered 
far and near, to the fiery east, and to the western 
isles. (15.) They are nobly praising God, and glori- 
fying the Righteous One, in the countries of their 
dispersion. (14, 15.) It looks as if they were leav- 
ening the whole earth with the knowledge of his 
name, making all lands resound with loud songs for 
the majesty of the Lord. Through their wide-spread 
testimony, the wide world seems about to become 
the Lord's in truth. " From the uttermost part of 
the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the 
righteous." (16.) 



THE LORD'S JUDGMENTS IN THE EARTH. 391 

But alas ! " the treacherous dealers have dealt very 
treacherously." (16.) Amid all this bright and 
blessed seeming, something sadly smites the seer's 
heart ; a sense of hollowness and unreality ; a feel- 
ing of dissatisfaction ; a sort of impression that the 
world's treacherous dealing is still proving too strong. 
Fair as is the picture, and full of promise, — good the 
song if only it be sung truly, — some sign warns the 
prophet not to let appearances deceive him. The 
full and final triumph of the Lord's truth is not yet. 
The world's falsehood must be purged by judgment. 

III. The third scene, accordingly, as we have it 
from the seventeenth verse to the twenty-third, 
opens with a spectacle of terror, on a large scale, 
extending over all the world. For it seems now to 
be the earth that is meant, the entire prophetic 
earth; which is usually to be considered as identical 
with the nations, as they have the church, or the 
truth of God, brought more or less into contact with 
them, from age to age. At any rate, the havoc of 
this third scene is far more widely spread than that 
of the first. There, it was a single, solitary, and 
isolated country that was in extremity. Here, it is 
the earth, or world, throughout whose borders the 
remnant, saved out of the former wreck, have been 
sounding the praises of the Lord; with much appa- 
rent promise of success, but with insidious elements 
of evil, preparing the way for a second, and a worse, 
outbreak. 

This scene, therefore, is of wide extent. It as- 
sumes the partial judgment described in the first 



392 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

scene, and the diffusion of light and love thence 
ensuing, exhibited in the second scene, — as well as 
the baneful influence of the worm of treachery there 
also indicated. And it discloses the wide ruin which 
this wide abuse of the widely offered good entails on 
the universal earth. 

On all sides, earth's inhabitants are in consterna- 
tion. It is the consternation of a sudden, universal 
panic. Instruments of capture ; weapons of destruc- 
tion ; are among them every where. Alarming sights 
and sounds are driving them distractedly to and fro. 
They flee from the noise of the fear, only to fall into 
the pit. They escape the pit, only to be taken in 
the snare (18.) Meanwhile, above them, heaven's 
windows of fiery indignation are opened (18.) Be- 
neath them, the very earth is shaken to its founda- 
tions; broken; melted (18, 19.) It staggers, like a 
drunkard, under the weight of its own transgression. 
It yields like a frail hut, to the pelting of the pitiless 
storm (20.) Then earth's high ones and kings are 
smitten. They become prisoners in a loathsome pit, 
not to be visited for many days (21, 22.) The very 
orbs of heaven share the consternation. "Then the 
moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed," 
(23.) It is darkness all; dismal darkness and fright. 

But when the gloom is thickest, the glory is aris- 
ing. Things are at the worst; no light of hope any 
where. When lo! a blessed surprise is near! 

IV. For the fourth scene, which is spread over a 
large space in the prophecy (from xxiv. 23 to xxvi. 
8,) opens with an abrupt discovery of the majesty of 



THE RUINED CITY. 393 

Jehovah, victorious and triumphant ! The Lord of 
hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, 
and before his ancients gloriously. 

At this great sight the prophet is more than satis- 
fied ; his heart is relieved ; he breaks out in a strain 
of joyous thanksgiving: — " Lord, thou art my God; 
I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name." All is now 
to be right. Jehovah's name is to be praised; — "for 
thou hast done wonderful things ; thy counsels of old 
are faithfulness and truth." 

But, not content with a general expression of his 
satisfaction, the prophet goes on to paint the several 
sections or groupings which combine to fill up the 
whole scene. For this fourth scene is complex. 
Under the bright overshadowing canopy of Jehovah 
reigning gloriously, the eye beholds three distinct 
objects of intense and vivid interest. 

1. Here, on one side of the canvass, is a city in 
ruins (2-5.) It was once a great and goodly city. 
But strangers had to come and own it. It had been 
in the hands of a people, not loyal, but estranged, 
hostile and rebellious. They had fenced and forti- 
fied it as a stronghold. They had splendidly adorned 
it as a palace. They were a people strong and terri- 
ble in their rebellion. They had oppressed the Lord's 
poor and needy ones. Their blast swept as a storm 
against the wall. 

But the Lord had been mindful of his own. He 
had been their strength in persecution ; and in him 
they had found a refuge and a shadow amid the fiery 
storm. And now at last they are avenged. The city 
is a heap ; its defences a ruin ; its palace pomp ex- 



394 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

changed for utter vacancy. The noisy pride of the 
apostate crew is brought down. Their persecuting 
fires disappear in the smoke of their own citadels. 
The terrible oppressor is as a broken and withered 
branch. A strong voice is heard crying mightily: 
"Joy! joy! Yes. "The city is fallen, is fallen!" 
"Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God 
Almighty;" — so sing the saints, triumphant over the 
beast in the Eevelation, (Rev. xv. 3.) " Thou hast 
done wonderful things;" — so sings the liberated 
church here. "Just and true are all thy ways, 
thou King of Saints;" — such is the response in the 
one soug. " Thy counsels of old are faithfulness 
and truth;" — that is the reply in the other. 

2. Not far from the ruined city appears a moun- 
tain (6-12 ;) evidently the mountain which is the seat 
of Jehovah's reign; Mount Zion (xxiv. 23.) There 
the Lord of hosts himself is welcoming the multi- 
tude of all nations to whom the fall of the tyrant 
city has been a glad jubilee. A feast is made for 
them ; a feast, large, generous, free ; open to all peo- 
ple ; rich with choicest dainties (6 ;) a feast of light 
and liberty, of life and victory (7, 8 ;) no more dark- 
ness; no more death; no more weeping; no more 
shame. So the Lord, the maker of the feast, ordains. 
The guests sit down, saying gratefully an appropriate 
grace : "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, 
and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited 
for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." 
(9.) They own the Lord, the king, as their God. In 
their trouble they waited for him in faith, assured 
that he would save them. In his salvation fulfilling 



THE STRONG CITY. 395 

all their hope, they now rejoice. !Nor is their joy 
marred by fear of any foe. The table is prepared 
before them in the presence of their enemies; not 
by stealth, as if in dread of them ; but openly, in de- 
fiance of them all. !Not the nearest and most bitter 
of them, — not Moab himself, — is formidable now. 
The Lord's hand rests in this mountain (10.) And 
trodden down under him, Moab is seen writhing and 
floundering, — 

" Like some strong swimmer in his agony," — (11.) 

while the high fort of his walls is brought down, laid 
low, and leveled to the dust (12.) 

3. But what is that which meets the eye, crown- 
ing the mountain's lofty brow? — A city again, and a 
crowd rushing in, singing a right joyous song. (xxvi. 
1-8.) _ 

Looking down on the black mass of the strange 
city's ruins below, a city of another sort stands. It 
is strong; its walls and bulwarks are salvation. (1.) 
A nation is before it ; all the people who have been 
feasted, now become one nation; "the righteous 
nation," for which, as such, entrance and free ad- 
mission into the city is claimed. (2.) It is a nation 
entitled to be called righteous, because " it keepeth 
the truth." (2.) Its people have not yielded to those 
treacherous dealings which, in a former scene, so 
sadly pained the prophet. They keep the truth; 
and therefore, as a true people, a righteous nation, 
"they enter in through the gates into the city." 
(Rev. xxii. 14.) They have not compromised or cor- 
rupted the testimony of God committed to their 



896 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

keeping. They have not trafficked with those who 
traffic deceitfully in the things of the Lord. "Nor, 
as a condition of liberty or right to traffic, have they 
received in their hands, or on their foreheads, any 
false mark. As a loyal people, they hear the order 
given, " Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation, 
which keepeth the truth, may enter in." And they 
sing, as they enter in, a song of praise. 

First, they sing the praise of faith, " Thou wilt 
keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on 
thee ; because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the 
Lord for ever ; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlast- 
ing strength." (3, 4.) And well they may so sing; 
for " their faith hath saved them." They know by 
experience how the Lord meets whatever confidence 
is reposed in him. They testify that God is faithful, 
and that the man who trusts in him is blessed. They 
enter into the city, calling loudly for a universal faith 
in God. 

Next, they celebrate the Lord's righteousness in 
bringing down the high ; laying the lofty city low ; 
causing the foot of the poor and needy, whom its 
terrible ones, in their pride of power, oppressed, to 
tread it down. "For he bringeth down them that 
dwell on high ; the lofty city, he layeth it low ; he 
layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it 
even to the dust. The foot shall tread it down, even 
the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy." 
(5, 6.) It has been a most righteous retribution. 
They are themselves the poor and needy, once per- 
secuted, but now triumphant. And while they pass 
through the gates of the strong city, with its walls 



THE UPRIGHTNESS OF JEHOVAH. 397 

and bulwarks of salvation, they cannot but own the 
justice of the Lord, as they cast a glance down on 
the ruins of that other city, which once was so bold 
against him, and so cruel to them, — but upon which, 
in his name, they now victoriously trample. 

Lastly, they tell of the kind consideration with 
which the Lord, in his faithfulness, treats his people, 
and has been treating them. "The way of the just 
is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the 
path of the just. Yea, in the way of thy judgments, 
O Lord, have we waited for thee : the desire of our 
soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of 
thee." (7, 8.) If, through grace, their way has been 
upright with him, much more has his way been up- 
right with them. True, they have had to wait for 
him. He seemed to tarry, and not to hear their cry. 
They have had to wait for him also in the way of 
his judgments ; — for when he did arise, it was " by 
terrible things in righteousness that he answered 
them." But they have found it to be the right way 
after all by which he has been leading them. For 
it is the way that redounds most to the glory of him, 
to whose name and to whose remembrance the de- 
sire of their soul inclines. 

Such is this scene of Jehovah reigning in Zion. 
There are presented to our view, on one side, the 
strange city in its ruins; on the other side, the 
strong city in its beauty; — and the sumptuous moun- 
tain feast between. 



Now passing in review the four scenes which have 
ket 
34 



been sketched, what do we seem to see ? 



398 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

I. A city and community long in covenant with 
the Lord ; becoming hopelessly apostate ; visited 
with terrible calamities; at last their "house left 
unto them desolate." 

II. A small and feeble band, emerging out of the 
wreck; dispersing themselves everywhere, and 
everywhere praising God ; changing the entire face 
of society; spreading among all men the knowledge 
and worship of Jehovah ; — until, as it might seem, 
earth is about to become the garden of the Lord ; — 
save only that a discerning eye sees treachery, a 
treacherous conspiracy, sapping the vitals of truth, 
and entrenching itself in some gorgeous palace and 
fortified stronghold of error. 

III. A convulsed and panic-stricken world ; upon 
the earth distress of all nations, with perplexity ; 
the earth itself dissolving; the sea and the waves 
roaring ; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for 
looking after those things that are coming on the 
earth ; the powers of heaven shaken. 

IV. Jehovah reigning gloriously in Mount Zion, 
with these accompanying signs of victory; — 1. A 
false city, the haunt and home of a party estranged 
from him and his truth, terrible to the poor and 
needy, at last overthrown and fallen ; — 2. The eman- 
cipated nations feasted on the mountain-side by the 
Lord ; their scanty fare of a few loaves and fishes 
converted into an abundance of fat things and rich 
wines; their blindness cured; their diseases healed ; 
death itself conquered ; and all their tears wiped 
away; — and, 3. A second city, diverse from the 
other, set on the hill, strong and fair; the nations 



THE CYCLE OE THE CHURCH'S HISTORY. 399 

of them that are saved walking in the light of it; 
the gates thrown open to the righteous nation. 

One can scarcely help applying this series of pic- 
tures, both generally and in detail, to the history of 
the church. Thus, in the first place, there is a local 
or partial desolation somewhere. This, secondly, 
causes a broadcast sowing of the seed of the word, 
and a goodly promise of harvest; — with a sad root 
of bitterness, however, discernible by the spiritual 
eye. In the third place, such a state of things leads 
to wide disorder and dismay. Until, fourthly, sud- 
denly, as it seems, the Lord is seen to reign glori- 
ously ; with these three accompaniments — a strange 
or hostile city overthrown; the liberated people fed, 
enlightened, revived and comforted; and the gates 
of a strong city opened to all who have been waiting 
for the Lord. 

Such a cycle, or sequence of events, embracing, 1. 
A central spot smitten ; 2. A radiating influence from 
thence for good, treacherously undermined, and in 
the end overthrown, by a subtle element of evil; 
3. As consequent thereon, a wide-spread chaos of 
the moral system; and, 4. A fresh and opportune 
impulse, or movement, or manifestation from the 
throne on high; — a cycle of some such sort as this, 
repeats itself from time to time in the history of the 
church. It might almost be regarded as the law o± 
its development. Its history runs in a sort of oscil- 
lating course, such as this prophecy points out. 
And, indeed, the conditions of its existence and 
progress in this fallen world are such that it could 
scarcelv be otherwise. 



400 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

The divine and heavenly stream issues from the 
bosom of eternal love. It has to make its way to the 
everlasting ocean, which that love seeks by means of 
it to fill. But it has to do so, not over a pure and 
smiling plain, in which it may flow gently, equably 
and smoothly on, in an ever-deepening and ever- 
widening tide of joy and peace. No. It moves 
through a region wild and barren, rough with rocks, 
foul and tangled with weedy swamps and forests. 
Not with calm and placid current, but fitfully, vio- 
lently, noisily; — turbidly often, and tumultuously; 
it has to force a passage through opposing barriers. 
There are reaches, more or less frequent, of quiet 
water, like a broad lake. But even in these the 
stream is only gathering force for new torrents and 
eddying falls; — until the strife at last is ended in 
the glad rush of its entrance into the broad and 
open sea. 

So the church advances, through alternations of 
trouble and prosperity ; — first to her millennial, and 
then to her eternal glory. 

I. Corruption grows to such a height as to de- 
mand the avenging stroke, — but yet also to admit of 
the lesson of mercy, remembered in the midst of 
wrath. — II. The lesson is carried abroad by an elect 
and dispersed remnant. Wherever they go they 
spread the truth. There is a gracious revival; so 
general and so marked, that it may almost pass for 
the promised reign of righteousness. But alas ! the 
leaven of unrighteousness and hypocrisy is at work. 
Hence III. New outbreaks of evil ; new visitations of 
wrath come. Yet again — IV. At the critical hour 



THE HEAVENLY STATE OF THE CHURCH. 401 

it is seen, it is felt that the Lord reigneth; to lay 
low the rebellious and proud citadel of error; to 
refresh, enlighten, revive, and comfort the people, 
poor and weary; and to open to them the gates of a 
strong city, in which they may dwell securely and 
sing for joy. 

If there is anything in these views, it would seem 
to follow that the last of the four scenes (xxiv. 23 — 
xxvi. 8) may be regarded as shadowing forth, more 
or less perfectly, those more signal seasons of de- 
liverance in the church's history, which wear the 
character, not so much of preparation, as of consum- 
mation; in which there is not merely a wide scatter- 
ing of good seed, as in the second scene (xxiv. 13- 
16,) but a universal reaping of the fruit, as in the 
fourth. 

In its full and true significancy, this last scene can 
represent only the heavenly state. In that state 
alone, when the earth is renewed — as we may well 
believe it is to be renewed — to be the central home 
of Christ and his saints for ever; when the new hea- 
vens and the new earth come, wherein dwell eth 
righteousness ; then and there alone can the glorious 
things here spoken of the people and city of the 
Lord be realized. Then and there alone is the ruin 
of the apostate city final (xxv. 1-5.) Then and there 
alone is the vail thoroughly removed ; death utterly 
destroyed; all tears for ever wiped away; glory fully 
given; and the table spread that is never to be with- 
drawn for any enemy (6-12.) Then and there alone, 
in the new heavens and the new earth, is the holy 

31* 



402 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

city, the New Jerusalem, descending out of heaven 
from God, to be set up on the earth (xxvi. 1-8 ;) the 
city in which the Lord's servants are to see his face 
and reign for ever. It is ultimately to the heavenly 
and eternal state, and to that alone, that the glowing 
brightness of this picture can fully and fairly apply 
(compare Rev. xxi. 1 ; xxii. 4, 5.) 

But while that is true — while the full and final re- 
alization of this scene must belong to the church's 
heavenly state — yet, as coming events cast their 
shadows before, so there are rehearsals, as it were, 
in time, of what awaits her beyond time. In a 
lesser and lower measure, this fourth scene may be 
regarded as bringing out the features of the millen- 
nial reign of grace — features essentially analogous 
to those of the eternal reign of glory. 

For, indeed, all grace bestowed now, in time,— 
whether on individual believers, or on the church at 
large, — is substantially identical in character with 
the glory hereafter to be revealed, in eternity; and 
the more triumphantly grace reigns, the more con- 
spicuously does its identity with glory shine forth. 
Hence the millennial reign of grace, is really a reign 
of great glory. 

Like all preceding scenes of spiritual prosperity in 
the church ; — from which it differs", not in the nature 
of its holy blessedness, but in the extent and degree 
of it, and in the length of years through which it is 
to last; — this golden age is to end abruptly, — so we 
are led to anticipate, — in a fresh outburst of unpre- 
cedented wickedness and violence on earth, to be met 
by one last deluge of fiery judgment from heaven. 



THE MILLENNIAL STATE OF THE CHURCH. 403 

That millennium therefore is not the ultimate hope 
of the church. JSTor is it in it that the Lord's kins:- 
dom or reign is to take its ultimate and perfect glory. 

Still, during the currency of it, it will partake 
largely of the elements that enter into the prophetic 
picture of heavenly glory, which Isaiah paints for us. 

For one thing the great enemy is worsted ; his 
great Babylon fallen ; himself bound. Then, again, 
the once down-trodden saints of God are raised to 
honor and pre-eminence ; richly fed ; enlightened ; 
set free from fear of injury or death ; their shame 
turned into beauty. And, more than that, they have 
a strong city. Salvation is appointed for walls and 
bulwarks. God is their salvation and their strength. 
It is a happy time for the true church and people of 
God. Iniquity, as ashamed, hides its face. Every 
where godliness prevails and prospers. 

But, alas ! there is a worm gnawing at the root of 
the gourd ; there is a latent dead fly in the oint- 
ment. The church is not yet moored in her hea- 
venly harbor. The law of her earthly condition 
and progress still holds. There must be one more 
adverse swing in the oscillations of her history: a 
terrible outbreak of evil at the close of that millen- 
nium of good. And then, all is well. And all is 
well — for ever ! 

Thus, this scene depicts, first and fully, the church's 
eternal state of gracious glory; secondly, and more 
imperfectly, the church's millennial state of glorious 
grace ; — for so perhaps the two states may be distin- 
guished from one another. 



404 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

And as it thus applies to these two stages of the 
church's ultimate prosperity, so it may be taken in 
a still more subordinate sense, to be descriptive of 
some of those better times, those times of refreshing 
and revival, which in great kindness, while these 
consummations so devoutly to be wished for are 
postponed, the Lord now and then, here and there, 
grants, by way of foretaste, to his weary and waiting 
saints. 

At such times, some great deliverance being 
wrought out for them, and the Spirit being largely 
poured out upon them, the people of God have been 
made to feel, as if all that this scene paints were al- 
ready realized, in their surprised and ravished expe- 
rience. The Lord turns again their captivity; they 
are like men that dream. Their mouth is filled with 
laughter, and their tongue with melody. 

So it may have been in the Alpine valleys of the 
Waldensians, when after long years of ruthless and 
bloody persecution, God avenged his slaughtered 
saints ; and there came for the exiled remnant that 
joyous and glorious return. It was a full feast, a 
rich spiritual banquet, that they sat down to, in their 
mountain fastnesses. And as they partake of it, a 
glad light breaks upon their dreary darkness. Death 
no longer stares them in the face. Weeping is for- 
gotten. All their shame is over. And their place 
of defence is the munitions of their own rocks. 
There they have a strong city ; its strength, its walls 
and bulwarks, is the salvation of their God. 

So also, in our own hills and valleys, once and 
again, there have been blessed seasons, when, rescu- 



THE BELIEVER'S RICH FEAST. 405 

ed from maddening oppression, and visited with gra- 
cious showers from on high, the Lord's covenanted 
servants have had a goodly entertainment ; lighten- 
ed as they looked unto him ; quickened and reviv- 
ed ; comforted and enlarged ; their faces not asham- 
ed any more ; their eyes seeing Jerusalem, after 
many troubles, a safe and quiet habitation at last. 

]S"or need the application of the scene, in this 
secondary sense, be restricted to the church at large, 
or to communities. As individual believers, you 
may take the benefit of it. You may appropriate 
its promises in detail. You may take the whole 
picture home to yourselves. It brings out what 
your experience may be, and ought to be. It shows 
you how God is willing, ready, anxious to deal with 
you. 

"What a table does he prepare before you in the 
presence of your enemies ! He invests you with a 
title to it which they cannot challenge : his own free 
and sovereign gift of grace ; — for "it is God that 
j ustifieth ; who is he that condemneth?" He en- 
dows you with strength for it, which they cannot 
touch; — for "who can separate you from the love of 
Christ?" And then, he covers it for you with food 
and wine : the food and wine of love, and holy joy, 
and perfect peace. 

]STor is this all. For as you freely eat and drink 
abundantly, he enlightens your darkness, as Jona- 
than's eyes were enlightened when he partook of the 
honey; and so doing, he is to you life from the dead. 
He dries also all the tears of your sorrow. He 
covers with his own beauty the shame of your naked- 



406 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

ness. He becomes himself your rock, your fortress, 
your strong tower. 

All this and more you may gather from the pic- 
ture, as showing what God has in store for you even 
now; what treatment you may meet with at his 
hands ; if only you will taste and see how good he 
is ; being not faithless but believing. 

And yet, when all this is exhausted, and you have 
reached the full scope of these glorious prophetic 
utterances, so far as the joy of them can be fulfilled 
here, in time ; — Oh ! what a thought is this : that it 
is all as nothing compared to what you are to be in 
that eternal world ; — in which wrong and outrage, 
and want, and darkness, and death, and sorrow, and 
shame, and danger, can no more come ; since then, 
in that world, when " this corruptible shall have put 
on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 
immortality," the saying shall be brought to pass 
which is written, " Death is swallowed up in vie- 
tory!" 

But although this fourth scene of consummation 
and triumph, which belongs fully and finally to the 
church's heavenly state, may be, as it were, rehears- 
ed, in some of her brightest earthly eras, and espe- 
cially in her millennial glory ; — -still it is the second 
scene, the scene of preparation and trial, (xxiv. 13 — 
16,) with its wide-spread testimony, and its latent, 
treacherous dealing, that most fitly symbolizes the 
ordinary experience of the church militant in the 
world. 

In a large view, indeed, the entire interval of time, 



THE CHURCH'S MISSIONARY CHARACTER. 407 

— between Jerusalem's overthrow, the critical era of 
trial, and the thousand years' reign of the saints, 
which is the beginning and prelude of triumph — is 
covered by this description of a scattered remnant ; 
— the gleanings, as it were, of the olive and the 
grape ; — causing songs of glory to the Righteous 
One to be heard from the uttermost parts of the 
earth. And whatever partial, or local, or personal 
revivals may have occurred, at sundry times and in 
divers manners, to serve as pledges and earnests of 
good things to come, the church's ordinary and nor- 
mal condition is that which is thus delineated. She 
must lay her account with being, not a perfect olive- 
tree or vine, but as it were, scattered droppings, 
driven and dispersed abroad by the rude winds. 

But these droppings are seeds of life and fruitful- 
ness. Christ's members, carried hither and thither 
in the turmoil of an agitated world, make con- 
science of " glorifying" everywhere "the Lord in 
the fires," or fiery climes, " even the name of the 
Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea." (xxiv. 
18 — 15.) Thus the gospel spreads itself. And from 
the uttermost parts of the earth are heard songs ; 
even glory to the righteous. 

How thoroughly, let me observe, in closing this 
discourse, and this volume, — how thoroughly is the 
church thus thrown into a missionary attitude. Nor 
is this the result of policy, or calculation, or reason- 
ing, on her part. It is a necessity of her position ; 
it is the irrepressible instinct of her scattered mem- 
bers; scattered over all the earth. And is it not 
well that it is so ? 



408 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

To treat the missionary cause as a matter of ab- 
stract philosophic speculation ; to attempt coolly to 
estimate the amount of risk which the heathen run 
as regards the world to come; to be making light 
almost of their danger, as if the gospel of Christ 
were not needful for their salvation ; to substitute, 
as a missionary motive, instead of zeal for God and 
desire of saving souls, a cold regard to the benefits 
which Christian civilization confers upon society; — 
how strangely is this at variance with the impulsive 
spirit of earnest faith ; its loud cry of alarm and invi- 
tation to the perishing; its yearning desire that the 
Lord may be glorified. Certainly it is no business 
of ours to sit in judgment on the heathen, and pro- 
nounce dogmatically their final doom; to guess how 
far the traditionary remnant of primeval revelation 
may avail in the Spirit's hands for enlightening some 
souls ; or to measure the severity of the "few stripes " 
with which "the servant that knows not his Lord's 
will is to be beaten." It is ours rather to remember 
, that "the servant who knows his Lord's will and does 
it not, is to be beaten with many stripes," and that " it 
will be more tolerable for the heathen in the day of 
judgment than for us," if we do not repent and be- 
lieve the gospel. 

But surely Christ's people, dispersed among the 
nations, see enough in the foul dishonor done to 
their God, in cities and countries wholly given 
to idolatry, to rouse and stir their spirit to the 
utmost; and enough in the vile abominations prac- 
tised for worship by the blinded victims of super- 
stition, to awaken the liveliest concern for their 
deliverance from the wrath to come, — "the wrath of 



URGENCY OF THE MISSIONARY WORK. 409 

God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness 
and unrighteousness of men." Surely it is a blessed 
office that these men of God discharge, dispersed 
over all the world, from the fiery east to the breezy 
isles and continents of the west. And, with what- 
ever drawback of latent treachery, it is blessed fruit 
that comes of it. 

To lift up the voice for the majesty of the Lord, 
and cry aloud for the glory of his name ; to put into 
the mouths of men, instead of songs of blasphemy 
and ribaldry, pure hymns of praise to the Most High ; 
to win honor for the righteous, where, till now, only 
wickedness has been extolled; who can over-estimate 
the greatness of a work like that? Who is there who 
has himself escaped out of the corruption that is in 
the world through lust; who has abandoned the 
doomed city of destruction ; who has tasted the gra- 
ciousness of a redeeming God ; who has fled to the 
stronghold as a prisoner of hope; who will not burn 
to sound an alarm wherever sinners are perishing in 
their sins, and to spread abroad, wherever there are 
minds to take it in, the knowledge of Jehovah's 
glorious name? 

If the condemnation of the whole world, but for 
grace, is a reality; if the universal corruption of 
mankind is a great fact; if there is a law in men's 
consciences that makes them, even in the darkest 
ignorance, responsible for their crimes ; and if there 
is but one name given under heaven whereby men 
may be saved ; — by every consideration of zeal for 
God and kindness to men, the church is bound, 
every Christian is bound, to do all that may be done 
<35 



410 LIFE IN A RISEN SAVIOUR. 

in this great cause of spreading abroad the seed of 
the word in which that name is revealed; sowing 
beside all waters. 

It may be that after all, the sowing is in the mean- 
while sparse ; and there may be tares secretly spring- 
ing up. It may be but rare and small strains of 
praise that, at the best, reach the ear from the utter- 
most parts of the earth. Few, and faint, and far 
between, may be the aggressions made, in the in- 
terest of God and truth, upon the vast territories 
where the Father of Lies holds all but universal 
sway. Vital godliness, spiritual Christianity, may 
seem to make but little head; and even where it 
prevails, there may be but too good cause for the 
church, as well as the prophet, to cry, "My leanness, 
my leanness, woe is unto me," and to anticipate the 
pouring out of wrath from on high. But " who may 
despise the day of small things?" Rather let us 
make full proof of present duty being done — and 
done promptly — in this intermediate and transition 
state; ere the judgments of God come on the na- 
tions of the earth. And let us encourage ourselves 
by looking forward, beyond these judgments, to the 
reign of righteousness and peace that is at last to be 
established over all the earth; when "the Lord of 
hosts, in his holy mountain, shall make unto all 
people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the 
lees ; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the 
lees well refined;" when "he will swallow up death 
in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears 
from off all faces." U 1 ^ ? 

THE END. 



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